


No Flag, No Belly, No Cry

by Shanedan (shanedan)



Series: Hanzo's Much Deserved Recovery and Redemption Arc, [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Alcoholism, Assassination, Blood, Depression, Genji Shimada is a Little Shit, Gets worse before it gets better, Gore, Hanzo-centric, I Wanna Get Better FIC, IM SERIOUS GUYS THIS GETS HEAVY PLEASE BE CAREFUL!, Isolation, Non-Gremlin Hana, PTSD, Self Harm, Severe Depression, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Suicide mention, Verbal Abuse, Violence, blood mention, hanzo is accepted as part of the FAMILy and he hates it, hanzo is having a hard time, self harm mention, this all makes it sound very sad and angsty which it is but not the sad kind of sad and angsty, this is not shimadacest lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-09-20 07:46:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 58,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9481565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shanedan/pseuds/Shanedan
Summary: Upon his “brothers” return from death and his subsequent message, it was unclear what Hanzo was to do. A sparrow feather thrown at him as Genji vanishes was no clear indication of anything;  how to choose sides, how the world was changing and how it concerned Hanzo, who had long ago left his concerns for the world behind him. And yet...Ten years, and here he is, chasing down his little brother again.





	1. Everything I've ever let go of has scratch marks in it

 

> **_"Everything I've ever let go of has scratch marks in it"_** David Foster Wallace

 

Something about the habitual rocking and clicking of the hyper train was comforting. Hanzo could almost fool himself into believing the sense of domesticity. The light of the morning drains through the dirty window to poorly illuminate the waterlogged book clutched on his lap; the ink of the words blurred to the point of almost illegitimacy. This book has been his only true companion for years of his own self-imposed exile now; he was loathe to part with it, even if it was for a newer copy.

 

It was the only belonging he just justify having, after all.

 

He stares at a poem halfway through the book. In this train ride alone, he’s gotten through the book two and a half times. _Starry Night, Anne Sexton_. Her words leave him with a strangely distant, unsettled feeling in his abdomen. It strikes too close to home, too close to closed scars on his middle, so with an unsatisfied sigh he closes the book and stores it back into his bag. It fits snugly against his meager changes of clothes and money pouch. The grey-green sea toils outside his window, the sky of Gibraltar beside it, and cradled in the distance is his towering destination.

 

Watchpoint: Gibraltar. Not to be confused with the English overseas territory, Gibraltar.

 

Upon his “brothers” return from death and his subsequent message, it was unclear what Hanzo was to do. A sparrow feather thrown at him as Genji vanishes was no clear indication of _anything_ ;  How to choose sides, how the world was changing and how it concerned Hanzo, who had long ago left his concerns for the world behind him. Hanzo had no reason to do anything besides go back to praying for the man he murdered and then disappearing again into the plains of Asia. Yet,  when Hanzo raised his head from the wood he could do little but give in.

 

Ten years, and here he is, chasing down his little brother again.

 

Not to say that the platinum-neon creature who nearly bested him _was_ Genji, his brother, his match. Ten years ago he had killed his brother, felt his blood on his own skin, shakily cleaned the murder weapon. He killed his brother. He killed his brother; Genji Shimada was dead. This was a reality he accepted, integrated into his life, and not a day went past where the truth hit him like a cybertrain going 600 kilometers per hour down a track on the coast of Spain:

 

_Genji Shimada is dead and I have killed him._

 

There was too much to brush aside. Did the automaton not conjure his own dragon? Did he not sound like Genji, fight like Genji? It was familiar in a painful way, the roaring green dragon, the way steam rose off of its scales, the terrifying cry. It’s open maws as it took his own and reversed them on their vessel-- it was straight out of a nightmare. He felt the dragon as well and the pain was almost comfortable, familiar, similar. Out of it’s place; when was the last time he felt its bite?

 

But he did not allow himself to admit it, and instead forced himself to stall at the question: If only a Shimada can control the dragons, who is this?

 

The answer came unbidden: Genji Shimada.

 

Genji Shimada, if he would accept it.

 

Following him was flighty, but with Hanzo wrestling the life and words out of the few underworld contacts he still had by virtue of being a Shimada (disgraced, fallen) he got answers.

 

A omnic (cyborg). The one who obliterated the Shimada Empire while Hanzo fleeing with his past hot on his heels. Last known, he was allied with Overwatch to the day of the Swiss Bomb. This is where Hanzo's leads ended, if Overwatch really had died. He held doubt, of course, when was it reasonable to _not_ have doubt. Who better to change the world than Overwatch? Who more able, who more controversial, and who more well known for taking in men who had yet to “pick a side” like Hanzo?

 

If Overwatch was back, it would have been illegal. It would be hidden in the shadows, doing work more like that of Blackwatch rather than Overwatch. It was nigh impossible. There were no signs to prove it _was_ back.

 

But Hanzo had a feeling.

 

The yakuza lord hidden inside him could only feel nervous at the thought. When he was a young man, Overwatch was on the top of his list of ‘ _organizations that could ruin your life_ ’, and in a way, it had. The cyborg tore the Shimada empire down brick by brick, only Hanzo wasn’t there to witness it. Hanzo wiped his clammy hands on his jeans; the train was air conditioned by still he was sweating.

 

For the sake of anonymity, Hanzo did not wear his traditional _kyudo-ji_ and _hakama_. He instead squeezed into a pair of Levis that were way too tight and slipped on the cheap black tank top you could buy at any half-pint corner store. It bore his tattoo to the world, yes, but tattoos were not rare here in Europe. They meant no sort of underworld connection as they did in Japan. It was just a fashion accessory like the piercings in Hanzo’s bridge and ears were. He stuffed the rest of his meager belongings in a (stolen) adidas drawstring and his bow and arrows in a cylindrical cloth bag.  He looked like any visiting tourist.

 

The warm sun beat down on Hanzo's collarbones and chest the moment he stepped off the cold train. There were hundreds of people milling outside the train station. An assassin could easily hide in their ranks, and Hanzo wished he had more than his fists readily available to him. Normally he would be hesitant to abandon the weapon, but only so many strangely dressed people could pass through a town bordering the historically relevant military base before someone raised the alarm.

The crowds ignored him as he pushed through them, heading unsurely for the sands of the beaches. He wasn't sure who would or _if_ someone provided passage to the lower steppes of Watchpoint: Gibraltar, but he knew there were few things money wouldn't buy.

 

A wizened old man agreed heartily before Hanzo even had to give an excuse, and he found himself clambering into a boat with a motor that might have been from the 20th century. The man only asked why he wanted to go once, and Hanzo shrugged and said, “I enjoy exploring abandoned places.”

 

For whatever reason, the old man took that as a legitimate answer.

 

Hanzo silently watched the misty Gibraltar grow closer, and closer, and closer, until the boat hit the shore with an obnoxious grinding. The driver gave Hanzo a business card with his phone number on it. “When you need a trip back, call this number. I will come get you.”

 

If Hanzo’s suspicions had been wrong, he would use that number. Sadly enough, Hanzo was rarely wrong.

 

Hanzo nodded and tossed Stormbow onto shore first before hauling himself over after. He doubted he was going to go back to shore for a long time, if he was right. He doubted he might _ever_ go back to shore. A niggling thought in his mind was that the automaton who called himself Genji had lured him to this place so far from his homeland to kill him. Kill him at last, he would corner him, raise that serrated neon blade to his throat, and then he would chop off his head and that would be the unfortunate, irrelevant end of Hanzo Shimada, last of his line. A death with no fanfare or mourners. _No flag, no belly, no cry_. How tempting was the fantasy of an end.

 

But he still went.

 

Promise of death notwithstanding.

 

There was what might have been a path through the rock face. Hanzo decided to follow it rather than try to avoid any sort of ambush that may come. The mountain was steep and prone to have sheer drops of about ten feet. There were molded, half-broken down constructs that _might’ve_ been stairs at one point, but when Hanzo tentatively laid his weight on one, it broke with a resounding crack. He resolved to just climbing the cliff face himself. This lasted for about fifteen minutes before the trees began to thin and Hanzo found himself at the concrete creation of Watchpoint: Gibraltar. A tactical fence with barbed wire at the top lay a couple yards away from the initial concrete. A camera lay on top of the gate, but if it was active Hanzo didn't know: either way he was coming in whether someone was there or not.  Nature had begun to reclaim the place. Dandelions grew from cracks in the ground; a tree had collapsed into what might have been a garage at one point, and moss, dirt and collective weeds had crawled up the fallen wall and began to bleed nature into the man made.

 

Hanzo was careful to avoid the flowers reclaiming their land as he approached the gate. No hum. No electrical box. Not electrified, then. Without further ado he unlatched the gate and approached the compound. There was a long concrete road he had to walk down to reach the actual compound He hadn't even reached the first door of the long span of industrial doors when a blue streak of light much like an avant-garde visual display flashed in his peripheral. Before Hanzo could even turn, he felt the cold metal of a gun pressed to his temple.

 

"Cheers, love. Athena says there's an intruder-- that you?" A cockney accent croons, a sheer layer of threat hidden underneath the otherwise cheerful greeting.

 

He was not wrong to suspect an ambush, then. "I am," Hanzo assures monotonously. This is not the closest he has been to death in the last six weeks, and he does not bother to try to take Stormbow out of it’s case. He has a inkling as to who the European he's talking to is, and if he's right--- _if he's right._

 

What did he walk into?

 

"If you happen to just be a curious tourist, checkin’ out the sights and whatnot, I’ll let you off scot-free. Sound good?"

 

It takes him a moment, but he slowly pulls his hand to his pocket ("Mate, I can see you do that, really, you trying to be sneaky?") and pulls out a single sparrow feather. It's in awful shape-- a trek around the world will do that-- and holds it up. "I believe I was invited."

 

The gun drops from his head sooner than he expected, along with the  vaguely threatening tone. "Ah, the you're that guest Genji told us to expect!"

 

Genji had told them to expect him and they still put a gun to his head. _Europeans._

 

"Yes," Hanzo answers succinctly, without warmth, and he hides his irritation at being held at gunpoint _again._

 

"Ridiculous, that guy, what’s with the feather? You arrived a few days ahead of him, had to drop by Nepal for some reason, so he’s keeping us all waiting." The woman dances into his vision. She has short hair, spiked, goggles on her face and a grin like... a European. Her features are otherwise unmentionable if they weren't splashed on every Overwatch poster across the world, even some on the walls of his very own Hanamura.

 

Hanzo hums in a way he hopes is _friendly-ish_ as Tracer sticks out her hand and says. "Lena Oxton, callsign Tracer, call me whatever you like!"

 

Hanzo looks at the outstretched hand with distaste. "...Hanzo,” he says, clipped.

 

Lena drops the hand and promptly rubs her hideous orange leggings like that was what she was doing all along. Very good recovery, Hanzo remembers doing it himself once or twice.  "Last name? Callsign?"

 

Did they not know he was Hanzo Shimada, brother to Genji Shimada, his murderer?

 

"Shimada. I do not have a 'callsign'," Hanzo supplies roughly. He wanted everyone to already know what he did, to treat him as he is. Now he would have to say, awkwardly, 'Yes, I killed my brother. Yes, that was me. Yes, I'm aware of what kind of person I am.' His patience is waning. He expected something when he arrived, sure, but this was not it. He wants to go home. He wants to pretend this never happened.

 

He wants his brother to be dead again.

 

"Unfortunate, unfortunate. Gonna need one, Overwatch is a bit incognito as it is," Lena says distractedly. She says words strangely. It is already hard for Hanzo to understand them without the awful accent. "Wait, hold on, you say Shimada? That's Genji's last name, right?"

 

 _For the love of_... "Yes. He is my brother."

 

"Genji never mentioned a brother! This is gonna be a blast!"

 

Must Genji leave Hanzo to say _everything._

 

"I--." Hanzo starts, the next words being I killed him, tore him to pieces, looked him in the eye and pushed deeper, ignored his cries of surrender, ignored his apologies, ignored him pleading, and struck and I struck.

 

"Well, no time to waste, got the rest of the team camped out somewhere around here waitin' to flank you in case things got tricky here! They end up doing that a lot. I’m the  only flanker that responded, can't avoid the nasty bits, but might as well...," Oxton interrupts him as though he had never started to say anything. She presses two very slim fingers to an audio-retriever in her ear and says, "No bite, pals. Just Genji's invitee. Said his name was...," she trailed off and looked at him expectantly.

 

"Hanzo." He supplies.

 

"Hanzo Shimada! Genji's brother, can you believe that? Never told us he had a brother, gonna wring him proper for that. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, I'll go ahead and bring him in. 'Round what corner? Oh, yeah. You really fell in? Haha, Winston, you had to know that thing was rusted to hell! Yeah, yeah, gotcher, I'm bringin' him through the employee entrance."

 

She really could talk. Hanzo's not sure he's said that many words in one go in his life. She talks like she's never going to get another chance.

 

Oxton removes her fingers from her ear and says. "Winston says he isn't surprised and that the old entrance is out of order for reasons he will be mad at me for saying!" Hanzo can fill in the gaps. "So we're gonna take a different route. It's faster anyway."

 

Oxton takes him through an old bunker filled with rusted beds, an overpass, a storage yard and finally into a launchpad area that led into the actual living part of the base. "Here it is! Home sweet home. Whole team is waiting for you-- not the whole team, truthfully, not all of us have replied and some of are still en route, McCree and your brother for instance, but who's here. Winston. Reinhardt. Mei. Hana. Angela. Er... I already say Winston? Yeah, pretty sparse lot, but we're trickling' in.” Oxton chatters absentmindedly as he plugs in a code to open the bay doors. They open with a gentle _woosh_ and a flood of cool air. A large mass stands just in the shadows; Hanzo is reaching back for his bow and arrow on his back.

 

A gorilla greets them at the door. His hulking mass is large, animalistic, and sets off a primal reflex that nearly sends Hanzo skittering up the wall. His shadow falls over Hanzo, he walks forward on his arms; he must be able to crush Hanzo's skull like a sparrow’s egg.

 

This kind of fear is instinctual, a fight or flight response. he’s switching between _flight_ and _fight_ so rapidly he’s frozen in place.

 

But the gorilla bares his lips in a human smile, canines bright and clean, and says, "Mr. Shimada! A pleasure to meet you, I'm Dr. Winston."

 

Ah. The gorilla is a doctor.

 

Hanzo glances at the hand, is almost shocked into shaking it, but does _definitely not_. Who knows where that’s been. "I hear you are expecting me, Dr. Winston," Hanzo says cordially and without hesitation, his shock boxed away and stored elsewhere. This is a professional environment, a professional greeting, and Hanzo was raised in venomous professionalism. He's brokered deals that leave him richer with a semiautomatic held to his head and a broken nose. The gorilla, however, is a new one.

 

"We are! Genji mentioned that he knew a very talented sniper, and we are unfortunately without any sort of long distance air support, but, uhh, he never mentioned it was his brother. Funny, haha."

 

This was a very pleasant gorilla.

 

It almost wipes the rapid-pace, hostile encounter with Oxton off Hanzo's mind.

 

"You flatter me," he says although he is hardly flattered at all. He knows he can shoot an apple off a stand 500 paces away. "But I am not joining Overwatch, you are mistaken." He already has enough people with guns chasing his every footstep, who is to say he needs one that are backed by the UN?

 

"Oh, is that so?" Winston rumbles, and a very gorilla-like huff of frustration falls out of his nose. "Genji said... Bah, whatever." He meanders out of the way so that Oxton and Hanzo can cross into the main part of the building, which is a scientific lab filled with slightly out of date computers and a team assembled in their gear.

 

A large white man midway through shrugging out of a heavy breastplate lets out a racious yell at his appearance. A German. Hanzo would, unfortunately, recognize that kind of attitude anywhere. The German unceremoniously drops his breastplate to the side with a clang, clad in just greaves and a black tanktop, and appears to be overcome with joy at his appearance. That must be Reinhardt. The image of the crusader is almost familiar; all Hanzo can recall is the amber flame on the back of the Crusader suit.

 

Next to him a small Asian woman of indeterminable nationality smiles beamingly at Hanzo, and another Asian girl of equally indeterminable nationality climbs out of a pink MEKA and pops her gum in boredom. Hana and Mei, though he is unsure which is which. There are no others-- the mysterious Angela is sight unseen.

 

None of them look at him with any sort of suspicion, or distrust, which was more stressful than if they did. Hanzo has no intention to hide his nature from these people nor his actions, but he is not  a teenager and will not blurt, 'I tried to kill my brother 10 years ago and that is why he is an amalgamation of machine and man!' There are timing for such things. One has to read the atmosphere.

 

So instead he says, "Greetings."

 

The three of them make their way over to his side before Hanzo can even draw in another falsely pleasant breath. Reinhardt leans into his face, a distance uncomfortable for the Japanese man, and says with a roar, "I am Wilhelm Reinhardt, Crusader! Welcome, welcome!" He holds out his hand, changes his mind, and goes in for a hug. Hanzo puts up his two hands and firmly dissuades him. "No, thank you," he mumbles. "A pleasure."

 

The two women are less up forward. They keep a respectable distance and the smaller, chubbier woman even tilts into a semi-formal bow.  "我很高興跟你見面 我很高兴跟你见面,"  She says pleasantly. The teenager tilts her head in something that could somehow be interpreted as respectful and adds, “만나서 반갑습니다.”

 

Hanzo pins his arms to his side and bows shallowly; his face never leaves his company. Polite, humble, but not without pride. Just the way he was raised. "I do speak Korean and Mandarin, but it has been many years. I am rusty," he replies diplomatically. Mei is from China and Song is from Korea, it seems. Before he can stop it, Hanzo's mind is running through every drug swindling operation they've run across the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea and every bug they had in their prospective governments.

 

He shakes his head. He is no longer Yakuza.

 

Instead he wonders at how a Korean could be here, when their government was gripped like an iron fist and smashing against the raging omics in their sea, and when China had retreated so far back into their communist roots that outside communication had been heavily regulated for the last five years. How the omnic crisis has changed the world.

 

Song inclines her head to the side, pops her gum, and assesses Hanzo quietly. "No problem. My name is Song Hana, callsign D.VA. That super cute MEKA there is mine," she jerks a thumb at the pink MEKA. It sits dark and inactive without a pilot, a hulking mass of military power meandering in Europe. Misplaced.

 

"Are those not part of the Korean anti-omnic military programme?" Hanzo says bluntly before he can stop himself, and even he hears the hostility in his voice. But the fact remains, he distinctly remembers knocking out an engineer and stealing plans for an employer. Back then, the program was just ideas, but while Hanzo has been off the map it seems that they actually went through with it.

 

"Yeah, they are. Recruited a bunch of gamers for their tactical prowess and eye-hand coordination or something… I caught wind of Overwatch, and South Korea really needs some manpower right now, so they cut me loose as a diplomat," Song says casually, as if the implications of trusting a mere teenager with a high-risk diplomacy job were not large. He reassess the girl who pops a hip and pops her gum at the same time, her bored eyes boring into his. “Agreed to let me join the taskforce in return for a hand in garnering UN support, blah blah blah, top secret, mumbo jumbo, coded messages.”

 

"You are just a child," Hanzo barks in disbelief. How old is she? _Seventeen_ ? _Eighteen_?

 

"Yet I am a soldier, just as you are… what? A _ninja_?" Grumpily Hanzo thinks that he fits more into the samurai archetype, but she’s got him there. He was not her age when he had his first assassination.

 

Hanzo hummed diplomatically and desperately pushed off the rising anxiety in his chest. That was over twenty years ago.

 

"I am Zhou Mei-ling, really nice to meet you! I'm a climatologist that was stationed at Watchpoint: Antarctica," the chubbier woman says politely. Surrounded by a large German veteran, an assassin for hire, a gorilla, a time anomaly and a teenage diplomat, she seems ordinary.

 

A second too slow, Hanzo digests her words.

 

Watchpoint: Antarctica.

 

That is far from ordinary.

 

"My family followed the work of your Watchpoint very closely," Hanzo says, and he is not lying. They were threatening their trade bonds with several large, illegal oil companies and other illicit businesses. "I had thought there were no survivors."

 

Mei's expression slopes off, and suddenly she is somewhere else with someone else if her eyes tell the truth. "It was a tragedy. There could've been... Whoever told you there weren't survivors didn't look." She is too young for this sort of survivor's guilt, Hanzo thinks. He had hit a spot he hadn’t thought to avoid.

 

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Zhou, Miss Song."

 

"Likewise, Shimada-san!" "Yeah, same."

 

At that moment the motorized doors that connect to the rest of the facility slide open, and a blonde woman in a white-chrome and gold cloth flows through the door. Electrical wings fold against her back as she strides in. "It was a quite a walk, I apologize," the woman begins to say before her eyes slide onto Hanzo. Immediately her expression solidifies, becomes something unreadable and professional and very cold.

 

"Genji's brother, Hanzo," Winston says.

 

"I am aware,” the woman says coldly.

 

"This is our resident doctor, Dr. Angela Zeigler," And the woman to her credit politely strides to him and reaches out her hand. "Also your brother’s personal doctor," she says, the meaning sliding off the rest of the company.

 

Ah.

 

Hanzo takes her hand and shakes it.He squeezes it in a challenging way.

 

"I see," Hanzo says.

 

"Genji had never mentioned you," Angela says politely, her tone almost accusatory, and Hanzo’s irritation swells so rapidly he chokes on venom in the back of his throat.

 

Her diplomatic words were useless here. If she thought she could _win_ at this sort of passive aggressive game, she was wrong. Her attitude was familiar, true, but not welcome.  He grew tired of this socialization, of these people who knew his brother more than he knew his brother, who talked about his brother in a way that made him seem alive.

 

_Genji Shimada is dead and I have killed him, Genji Shimada is dead and I have killed him, Genji Shimada is dead and I have killed him._

 

"A likely occurrence. I am not surprised," Hanzo answers brusquely. He schools his face to be even, his tone to be blank, his eyes to be darkened. He sneers as he stands to his full height.  His regret is something he will admit easily; not something he will show.

 

"Who’s Genji? What? Why isn't he surprised?" Song whispers not so quietly to Zhou, and Zhou turns to whisper not so quietly back, "Genji is his brother. I don't see the resemblance--,"

 

Mei is cut off by Angela's authoritative tone calling, "Genji has not _always_ looked that way." Her voice rings out sure and justified.

 

"A flowery way of saying I killed him."

 

The room grew silent at his declaration. He steps up the last remaining steps to square up to Angela, face in her face, eyes on her eyes, the lutheran blue into his brown, and he says quietly enough for her and only her to hear, "And he should have stayed that way, Doctor."

 

Angela says nothing in response, unguarded eyes boring into him, and he steps back. If he knew one thing only, it was how to be the center of attention in a room. He breathes in deep, centers himself, centers the emotions raging in his chest, centers the tears brimming in his throat, and breathes it all out through his nose. Another time, another place, preferably with alcoholic beverage.

 

He turns to face Dr. Winston. "I will need safe quarters for a time until Genji arrives and we can discuss... Whatever nonsense brought me to this place. Will this be admissible or am I no longer welcome here?" His voice booms with authority as he descends the steps, the metallic clunk-click of his feet marking the hall with tension until he had, once again, stood a respectable distance away from the gorrilla.

  


Winston seems to struggle for words, his mouth open. His teeth were as long as Hanzo's thumb. "Uhh," is all he says.

 

"Am I no longer welcome here?" Hanzo asks again, quieter, firmer. He wishes to be shown possible room and then to be left alone.

 

"Well, uh, I mean if Genji sent you, and he did because that's definitely Genji's smell on that--," Winston looks at the feather in Oxton’s hands. "--I mean, I guess? It's not like... Well... Yeah. Hana, if you would?"

 

The room is still deadly quiet. Song looks around her to verify that it was, in fact, her who would lead the sour samurai to an empty room, and when no one else was stepping forward, she did. "Sure." She motions for Hanzo to follow her, and he does. Six paces behind.

 

As soon as they leave the room with all its occupants, Song turns a critical eye on Hanzo. "You really killed him, huh?”

 

Was that not just sorted out. “Yes, I believed I did,” he replies dully.

 

“Was it some sort of family drama stuff?” Song wondered, and Hanzo’s eyes narrowed in surprise. She guessed so easily.

 

“I suppose,” Hanzo answers cryptically. Song turns to send him an unimpressed look, “Yeah, yeah, I know I’m right. Why else would you kill your brother?”

 

Hanzo makes a displeased sound in the back of his throat. "You are sharper than you appear," Hanzo says begrudgingly. It is not the first time appearances have deceived him, but it is the first time in a long time.

 

"That’s what everyone says,” Song replies. The two of them step off the stairs.

 

At the end of the stairs is a wide hallway. On the left end of the hallway is a series of rooms labelled with a grey _A_ ;  the further to the left you go the smaller the numbers become. The right end of the hallway opens up into a medium-sized square room with cheap, round plastic tables and chairs. A large kitchen is tucked away in the corner; there is still coffee brewing on the stand. In the far right corner of the room lies a darkened archway. The hallway leads on past the cafeteria area into more rooms.

 

Song takes them to the left. They pass A12, A10 and A8 on the left side of the hall and stop at A6. Song opens the door and reveals a dim, dusty room.  

 

"Your room, Shimada-san."

Hanzo peeks into it. It has one large window from ceiling to floor, and in front of that there is a single desk with a single chair, unpadded, disused and discolored. The bed is just a frame with no mattress, no pillows and no sheets; just a rusted metal frame with dust collecting an inch thick onto it. The closet is empty, door spread open. There's a rather astounding amount of active spiderwebs within it. One spider seems to have grown rich here, its thorax large and bulbous.

 

Either that or it was pregnant. Which was the infinitely worse scenario.

 

"Home sweet home," Song says dully.

 

"Are you giving me this room on purpose?" Hanzo spat, his eyebrows drawn together in a displeased line. The room was a _disaster_.

 

"It’s the next empty one,” Song shrugged noncommittally at Hanzo’s accusation.  “Laundry room is off the door in the kitchen by the fridge, they have brooms and stuff in there. All the cleaning supplies you need too, sheets, pillows. There's a door that leads to the basement with other furniture in there too, but I think you'll just go for the bed."

 

" It is fortunate that I enjoy cleaning,” Hanzo grumbled.

 

Song laughed loudly. She didn't cover her mouth with her hand or her smile with her fingers. She shook her head in disbelief, commented, "Aren't you a rich boy? Do they ever clean?" snd disappears into the room next to with a slam.

 

What a welcoming party.

 

Hanzo investigates his room further. There is a black panel screen hidden in the wall at the foot of his bed. The door beside the closet leads to a bathroom that smelt of mold, mildew and rot. With spit on the end of his tanktop and quick swipe at the walls, Hanzo realizes that the wall and floor are supposed to be white instead of a dingy gray.

 

Well.

 

The day is still young.

 

No one else has appeared while Song introduced him to his room and while he inspected it; they must have scattered and been avoiding him now. With a sigh of relief, he  moves through the cafeteria into the laundry room as told. True to word, bottles of bleach and other cleaning supplies sit on plastic racks. He fetches the bleach, the window cleaner, several rags, a bucket, and a mask.

 

No need for gloves. He will savor the burn.

 

He spends the next six hours deep cleaning the room. As he rubs the floors with lye and bleach, cleaning away their dirt and dust and mud, their disuse, the lye seeps into his open scratches. It stings, licks at the wounds and irritates them until his entire calloused hand is red and inflamed. When he flexes, he sees a swell of red prickle at the base of the cuts.

Still he scrubs. He scrubs, and scrubs, and scrubs. The wall, the floor, the door, the bathroom counter, the sink, the toilet, the tub. He dusts and dusts, he tackles the spiders with a broom handle, he crushes the pregnant spider under prosthetic foot and scrubs her green remains, he trashes the hangers, trashes the bits of paper written in a language he did not speak (Spanish) though he does linger over the human words.

 

He tosses the entire bed frame into the hallway with one arm. It is too rusty to be trusted with his weight; he will search for another or sleep on the floor.

 

When tossing, he finds that he nearly hits Song as she emerges out of her room. She stops with a squeak as the frame flies past her and into the wall. The rust streaks like blood. At her yell, Hanzo stops to look out the open doorway to see her standing in a white t-shirt, clutching microwave ramen to her chest and breathing heavy in recovered fear. She looks at the rusted mess, at Hanzo, at the frame.

 

"My apologies," Hanzo says. "I will clean that up as well." Since it looks like he is the only one in this god forsaken watchpoint that can clean.

 

"Watch out next time!" Song exclaims. Her eyes dart down to his hands. “What happened there, dude?” Hanzo looks down at his hands. While he wasn't looking, the small welts of blood has turned into small rivers of blood that coursed down his hand, decorating the floor.

 

Huh. He hadn't even noticed.

 

"It is no issue. I do not feel it," Hanzo assures. He goes to wipe it on his shirt, reconsiders, and pivots briefly as he tries to figure out what to do. He almost dips them in the bucket of bleach in spite.

 

"Stupid," Song chides. She puts her ramen on the floor and ventures closer to investigate. She makes a motion that translates as ‘ _lemme see ‘em’._

 

Confused, he does.

 

Song clicks her tongue and says a korean word he can’t remember at the sight. His hands do indeed look ghastly; even the skin that is not bleeding is red and irritated. She leads him to the sink and runs water over his hands until the cuts can be clearly seen. She takes bandaids out of her back pocket. “I used to get these awful calluses from playing _Starcraft_ ,” Song says as way of explanation. The bandages are patterned after a children's show, but Hanzo does not protest as she patches him up best she can.

 

"I do not deserve your kindness," Hanzo says tonelessly.

 

"Sure don’t,” Song fires back immediately. “But I’m going to give it you anyway.”

 

She peers past Hanzo's shoulder to see his clean room and her face drops open at the surprise. "It's so clean! You did this all by yourself? It took me hours to clean mine and I had people helping me," she looks back at the bedframe and shrugs. Perhaps she did not try to salvage hers either.

 

“I enjoy cleaning,” Hanzo says as way of explanation.

 

Song shrugs. “To each their own,” she says brightly. She picks up her ramen cups and goes on her way.

 

He thinks of the blood that comes from battles and hopes that Song knows how to clean out blood; he will secretly do it for her if he is given the opportunity. He does not wish to be a burden.

 

He cannot find a frame despite his searching. So he forgoes it.  He throws the mattress on the floor as if it is a futon, dresses it with sheets and calls it good. He spends an additional half-hour cleaning up the bed frame and the rust on the wall but after that, there is nothing to clean. Hanzo has sparse belongings to begin with; there is no setting up process to speak of. He simply drops his drawstring on the drawers, falls into lotus position and basks in the smell of bleach.

 

Everything smells new and clean, their faults and filth scrubbed from them. It is refreshing. But still his chest feels stuck in between two places, running but going nowhere, and an acute sense of dread falls over him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry i accidentally deleted this chapter but here it is! back again:
> 
> Hanzo meets the resident cowboy. They do not mesh well.

Hanzo awakes groggily, uncomfortably slumped in lotus form. His hands are grasping where a sword should be, his eyes are crying tears that should not be there, and there’s discomfort lodged into his chest like a tumor straining his very breath. There’s images that are already fading from his mind; of a sword he put aside, a hand raised to parry, the white tiled stained red. 

 

Desperately, he pushes away all the nightmares. (どうぞ、兄さんよ、どうぞ！ please brother please) It has been ten years and still he dreams of him every night. Sometimes, they are pleasant (私とゲームをしたい、半蔵? Do you want to play a game with me?). Sometimes they are vague, remnants of a conversation he can only subconsciously remember (そして、私は彼に言った、ああ、そう？ 私の兄弟 - and so i said to him, oh yeah? Well my brother). Sometimes they are flashes of that night ten years ago clearer than any dream he has (やめないで！ please stop dont). Sometimes, he doesn’t dream at all.

 

When he awakes, he can hardly recall the nightmares. He can only recall the fear.

 

Hanzo unwinds his stiff legs. The subtle robotics in his prosthetic legs begin to whir after their long period of inactivation, their balance rotaries and gripping technology pulsing once, twice, before settling back to a customary low hum.  Hanzo kneads his cold, stiff thighs and stands up. His neck hurts like a bitch; He is not as young as he used to be, and his spine will not let him forget it.  Hanzo stands and stretches: side to side, down to his toes, pull his leg upwards as far as he could. Movements accented by a pop.  _ That’s better _ .

 

The sun outside has set and the quiet, cold stillness of a temperate summer has descended outside. Previously he could see an overgrown, desolate courtyard with a singular blooming tree outside his window. Now he cannot see anything outside the immediate few feet illuminated by the light in the room; it is a view he would describe as  _ lonely _ . 

 

Hanzo catches a view of himself in the mirror as he goes to relieve himself. He hasn’t showered in recent memory and so his hair has become stringy and limp. He sees frown lines on his face, his grey streaking towards his neck, the tired bags under his eyes and the dull lifelessness of his eyes. He is getting old indeed. Soon he will look in the mirror and see, god forbid,  _ age spots _ . 

 

Hanzo pulls his hand through his hair in an attempt to comb it away from his forehead and calls it satisfactory. He does not spare himself a second glance as he silently trudges into the hallway and from there, into the cafeteria. A large kitchen sealed off by a partial wall is silent and he is alone; as he goes to pass it he finds that he is ravenous. The mere sight of the kitchen leaves his mouth slightly watering. He wracks his memory and finds he hasn’t eaten in a day-- two? Hanzo risked a small vegetarian dish at the Indian food place in the hyper train station, but when was that? 

 

Hanzo finds himself stuck between approaching the kitchen and going on his way. 

 

He has not been welcomed to their food; but they gave him lodgings? He cannot remember anyone attempting to wake him for dinner, and he is a light sleeper. Perhaps they serve themselves. Perhaps they purposefully excluded Hanzo. He cannot blame them-- he is not good company. He could barely be called  _ tolerable _ company. People will tolerate the grumpy. They will not tolerate the murderers, it seems. In which case, Hanzo will just have to eat alone.  _ If _ he eats. 

 

Hanzo opens their industrial fridge. 

 

If he eats, he will be prepared for his death in a few where "Genji" surely kills him. He cannot imagine why else he was brought to this den of do-gooders; their goal is to better the world and his is to escape it, to outrun it, to hide from it. Would it be more respectful to “Genji” to accept his death on his knees or with a weapon? Would “Genji” want him to put up a fight? If he wanted him to put up a fight then he could've killed him in Hanamura. Truthfully, if Hanzo were to be given a choice (which he does not deserve) he would prefer for it to be no large event. A death forgotten by time, by honor. Let the Shimada line die with him. 

 

_ Anne Sexton: "No flag, no belly, no cry." _

 

He stares emptily at the fridge, pondering funeral processions. Were he in the Shimada-gumi, it would be a grand traditional funeral filled with white lilies and men and women who only cared for his power in black. His photo would be in black. His coffin would be black; the ashes pot that would set beside his father's black. The trio of them, his mother and his father and himself, sat lonely and quiet in the abandoned Shimada hall. 

 

There was not enough of Genji to recover. The body had disappeared by the time Hanzo got the strength of mind to send someone to recover it.

 

However, if he were to die here, it would be as an enemy. There will no flowers. No photo. No coffin. No cremation. A nameless ronin dead in an unmarked grave somewhere. Burned and tossed to the wind. Perhaps they would not even bury him, but weight down his legs (as if his prosthetics weren't heavy enough) and throw him into the unforgiving salted sea. There he would rest, being nibbled at in flaking layers by bottom feeders and predators alike.

 

Perhaps his skeleton would house coral or a school of fish. He would like that. Finally some  _ use _ out of this body. His muscles would make good protein, he believes. 

 

His contemplation is interrupted by the audible sound of someone leaning against the countertop. "Howdy," the person says, and Hanzo whips around. He did not hear anyone approach, and by god, he would've heard them. He  _ should've _ heard them. He cannot see them in the absolute darkness beyond the light of the fridge; all he sees is a red burning ember. 

A dragon’s eye; the things of his nightmares. 

 

"Ain't seen you before," the voice continues. "And I know this place better than I know my own gun. Well, not as well, but I reckon you get the gist of it."

 

Hanzo says nothing, but stares stonily into the dragon's eye, looking for some sort of movement that betrays his perpetrator.

 

"Shit, it's dark as the seven hells in here, why didn't you turn on the light? S'bad for your eyes," the voice continues. The ember shuffles off to the wall by the hallway.  _ Peepers _ . A ridiculous word. Hanzo would sooner stab himself than say it.  _ Ha _ . Would sooner…  _ Ha. _

  
  


The lights flicker on, white-yellow, and into view strides not a dragon. But an American. An American Hanzo does not recognize; and a flamboyant one at that. 

 

He huffs and turns back to the fridge, unconcerned.

  
  


"Y'lookin for a bite? Yeah, me too. Scooch over, lemme get a peek." The southern man hip bumps Hanzo out of the way; Hanzo is too outraged to speak.  _ Surely _ he didn’t just do that.  

 

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph they ain't got nothin but shit in here. Angie's on base already, I knew it. Reckon the freezer had some taquitos, y'think? Y'looked there?" The man opens the freezer. "Bullseye. I knew Rein would never let me down, that old dog!"

 

The man emerges with a box of frozen taquitos, tilts up his ridiculous hat to look down at Hanzo with a ragged grin. In such close proximity, and Hanzo gets his first look at the man.

 

The man looks like he hadn't encountered a razor, ever, in his life. He had a straight nose that ran up to meet deep, expressive brows. His eyes were mature and brown, the color of his sun-tanned skin that had smile lines and stress lines and an inappropriate amount of dark freckles for a full-grown man. A live cigarello burned in his mouth, the dark perfume spreading thickly between them. Hanzo could see the beginning of shaggy brown hair under his hat. This man's theme was brown; like the desert, like the wheat in the fields, like the dirt it was planted in and like wet-eyed cows in their fields. Hanzo looks up into his eyes again and finds that the man was assessing him as well.

 

Hanzo suddenly felt self-conscious. If he had known he was to be meeting someone, he would've made an impression. Instead, he appeared before him with all the mussed dishevelment of someone who literally had just rolled out of bed. He doesn't look very imposing now; jeans, a tank top that did nothing for the cold, his hair down flat and greasy, crust in his eye and drool down his face. On top of that, he looks  _ especially _ old today. 

 

"You are a mess," Hanzo declares just as the man says, "Well, ain't you a sight for sore eyes."

 

Hanzo has to stop to ponder that one.  _ Eyes are sore only after exposure to bright light for many hours and no sight in the world can cure that, except the back of the eyelids.  _

 

Americans.

 

Senseless.

 

The man huffs out a laugh, half insulted and half entertained. He holds the box of taquitos to his chest like a waif. "Well, I never!" He exclaims, fakely scandalized. "Hello to y'too! My name is Jesse Mccree, but sugar, you can call me whenever you like.”

 

It was two in the morning. Must Hanzo put up with this?

 

"Charming," Hanzo drawls sarcastically. “A heartbreaker you are, Mr. Mccree.”

 

“Oh no, Mr. Mccree was my father. I’m just Mccree,” Mccree assures. Hanzo’s eyes narrow. The man must be in his forties and he still will not let himself be called  _ mister _ ? 

 

“How about foolish american man?” Hanzo snaps. He tries to move around Mccree to get to the food again, but the man’s large frame is unforgiving. 

 

"God damn, you got a bite like a viper and the venom is twice as strong!”

 

“So I’ve been  _ told _ ,” Hanzo says humorlessly.

 

Hanzo had been attempted to subtly look past the Mccree in search of food, and the food was filled with things that admittedly looked good. There was a thick collection of greens he hadn’t had the pleasure of having in a while; apples, broccoli, celery, oranges, bananas, peaches, cherries and carrots. There were stacks and stacks of cooled bottled water on the very top shelf with dripping condensation on their recycled outer shells.  He fantasized briefly about just taking the entire refrigerator. 

 

But he couldn’t even grab a simple water bottle with the way the tall, western man sidled in front of his view; the dull gilded chest armor nearly came face to face with Hanzo's nose as he went in for the approach. The taquitos were still held to his chest. “What, ain’t got nothin’ to say now, spitfire?” The man teased, his voice dropping dangerously low; Hanzo tried to look up into his face but all he got was shadows.

 

Hanzo shouldered the man out of the way, grabbed a water bottle turned on his heel to walk again. He felt his brow absolutely crunch under the pressure of his irritation. 

 

Almost startled by Hanzo’s silent and brusque dismissal, Jesse stumbled before he asked again, his voice really  _ was _ deep, “Can I a’least catch your name before y’go?”

 

Hanzo stopped in his tracks. He didn’t know who he was? Truly? Hanzo considered leaving without telling him. Mccree would find out eventually. It was likely the sun would rise and Mccree would have heard three times over about Hanzo’s lackluster reputation. 

 

“Why do you care?” Hanzo asked instead, voice harsh and low. 

 

“I consider myself somethin’ of the friendly type,” Mccree answers. Hanzo heaves a sigh and rolls his eyes. “I will reword. Why does it matter?”

 

Mccree sidled around so that he was in Hanzo’s line of sight. To Hanzo’s absolute horror, he took off his hat. “Well, how else am I to refer to a handsome man?” He purred. 

 

Hanzo was not impressed. He was unimpressed, if that. “I would prefer you to not refer to me at all,” he declared. 

 

Mccree just raises his eyebrows in a flirtatious manner. Hanzo steps away at the sight, and the squeezing in his chest is not the kind one would associate with flirting. It’s violent, tired, the sort that leaves his tongue loose and his face hot in the enraged sort of way. 

 

“No, you idiot,” Hanzo snaps.  Mccree’s raised eyebrows form a straight line over his eyes, and he says, “Now, now, no need for name-callin’,” he soothes, but Hanzo has already started. His motors roaring and it’ll take an ocean to stop him.

 

“You are a moron if you think that this will work to any extent, so I will repeat if I must,” Hanzo snaps. He advances up to Mccree. Hanzo barely comes up to his chin, but goddamn if he cares. 

 

“ _ No _ . I do not  _ care _ . Your flirting is unappreciated, unwelcome, and skilless,” Hanzo huffs a breath out of his nose, inhales, and he can smell the sharp scent of alcohol sure as day. “Crawl back into the bar you came from and leave me  _ be _ .” Hypocritical, sure. Effective? Absolutely. 

 

The cowboy stops, and his tone is truly aggravated as he says, “There’s no need for this sort of--,” Hanzo interrupts him by shoving past him. 

 

“Leave me be, Jesse Mccree,” he snaps like a wolf wounded and he retreats. 

 

Mccree says nothing as Hanzo prowls back into his room. Hanzo is unsatisfied that all he managed to escape with was a water bottle, but he drinks the entirety of it. When that fails to calm him down from his rage, he dunks his head under the cold tap water of his sink and then heads back to bed.

 

He does not dream. 

 

..

 

As the sun peaked over the crags of Gibraltar, Hanzo emerged from his room fully dressed, bathed, and what he qualified as ready to deal with the day: tired, with very small amount of patience, irritated already and ready to shoot the first thing that looked his way wrong. 

 

In synchronization, Hana had stepped out of her room fully dressed as well; she wore a single pink sports bra emblazoned with a white rabbit logo and jogging pants. Her sprinting shoes were already all laced up. Her hair was pulled back into a loose bun on the top of her head; her intelligent eyes flickered over to Hanzo just as Hanzo turned to look over at her.

 

“You’re up early,” Hana observes noncommittally as she closes her door behind her. Hanzo does the same. 

 

“As are you.”

 

“I am always up early,” Hana retorted quickly. She blew a pink bubble from her gum, popped it with a click of her teeth, and then turned past Hanzo and jogged down the hallway. With a slam, she disappeared out an exit door.  She was gone as abruptly she was there.

 

Hanzo watched her go, slightly stunned.  Something about the way Song carried herself, talked and moved was leaking with self-confidence that even left him reeling. But he could not stand gawking at the place where an assured teenager used to be (in good conscience), and so he turned tail and walked the other way. He passed the kitchen, where Reinhardt faced a stove and cooked something that smelt like meat and grease and gastrointestinal problems. Hanzo passed Reinhardt silently.

 

Hanzo continued.

 

He continued past long silver hallways he did not know, more rooms, something that must have been a medical center (sealed off, silent, a single desk light on behind the transparent doors), past a pair of stairs to the basement. He paused at stairs that seemed to go up.

 

Huffing at himself for being predictable (a bad habit, one that will get him killed), he turns and ascends the stairs. He goes up four flights before he runs out of stairs, and even then it seems he had only entered the top of an airflight communication tower attached to Gibraltar. It is empty and dusty and several of the machines lay in pieces, looted by Winston for parts. He would be alone here.

 

But he is still not satisfied and still predictable. So he goes the nearest window, a large curved pane of glass and attempts to push it open. It does not budge. He searches for a latch and finds none. He checks the other windows to the same result.  _ No way in, no way out. _

 

He steps back and scans the floor of the communication tower; there, overturned, a single office chair. He sets it back up. He sits in it, resigned to his fate, but then the morning cresting over the sea catches his eyes just right. He gives into temptation and rises off the chair. He hefts the chair in both hands. 

 

So what if he throws a chair through a window? He saw the broken window in Winston’s personal lab (don’t think he missed that little number) and that certainly was not the result of a chair. What is the harm of one more?

 

He will be dead in time anyway. Let the dead man walking have his hours of peace.

 

As he hoists the chair to toss it, a clear and emotionless voice interrupts seemingly from the ceiling: “Hanzo Shimada, are you intending to throw that chair through the window?”

 

It seems senseless when they put it like that, but Hanzo blows that off and instead wields the chair as a weapon. A shift of the leg, the bending of a knee and he could knock out a full grown man with a full blown office chair. He has done more with less.

 

“Who are you? Identify yourself!” Hanzo demands.

 

A single blue  _ A _ lights up on the full screen in the center of the room, with a line below it that spiked with audio. The voice byte twitches as it says, “I am Athena, the AI of Watchpoint: Gibraltar. Do you wish for directions to the roof, Hanzo Shimada?”

 

“How do you know who I am?” Hanzo does not lower the chair or relax. He is no fool; AI are separate from omnics but an AI with an attitude and a way to access a base full of people with guns is no ally of his.

 

“You were entered into my personnell database by STRIKE COMMANDER: WINSTON last night at 20:27 under personnel code 2357h98a. Do you wish for directions to the roof, Hanzo Shimada?”

 

That  _ stupid _ gorilla.

 

“No, I want access to the roof of this communication hub. I will break this window regardless of your permissions.”

 

The AI does not respond for a few beats, and then monotonously says: “As you can see, the window is already in desperate need of repair. I will tell Winston to allocate money for again while he budgets for base repair.”

 

Hanzo looks at the window. There is no ‘desperate’ need for repair; it is perfectly fine. Hanzo looks again at the AI.

 

“Are you telling me to break the window so that you can finally make the gorilla repair the base?”

 

“As requested, I will tell Winston to update his cost projection. Good day, Hanzo Shimada.” The A blinked off the screen and all was quiet once again. Hanzo waited a few moments for her to chime in about it once again, but the room was quiet and still.

 

Hanzo threw the chair out of the window.

 

It broke into several pieces at the rocky tide of the island. Carelessly Hanzo punched out the rest of the glass and climbed onto the sloping roof of the communication center; he was not afraid to fall. He had been trained well, and even if he did fall…

 

Hanzo reached the top, which was slightly flatter. He sat himself in the epicenter of it all, Stormbow beside him, and pulled out the waterlogged book he tucked inside his tunic that morning right before leaving.

 

_ An Investigation into Mental Illness in the Poets of the 20th and 21st century. _

 

_ A long title for a bunch of cowards _ , Hanzo muses silently, but skips past it nonetheless. It was some book Hanzo had stolen from his college decades ago on a whim. Being a business major with a minor in mathematics, he didn’t particularly get a chance to peruse much in the way of literature. He wasn’t sure what he wanted or expected when he took it; entertainment, a new interest, to be bored? Perhaps. It was some dissection written by an English major for some major project Hanzo simply couldn’t give a damn about.

 

But the student in question does have good taste.

 

They start to mention poetry from WWI.  He skips a few pages dissection on WWI and about the context of poetry from that time. He knows about WWI. His family was actively involved in WWI and he was never allowed to forget the role they had in the sinking of  _ Lusitania _ ; all elder Shou would talk about was the Shimada involvement.

 

All Hanzo could think about was the lives that Shimada Agent (Shimada Seiji) took by following a contract to the ends. 

 

Siegfried Sassoon is first on his list; he is not surprised. The man was loud about his war, loud about his agony, bitterly screaming about the horror of WWI and everyone looked the other way. In Japan, the man who would have screamed about the horror of WWI was a man considered weak. It was a lack of character. He should be proud to do his duty.  _ Hanzo should have been proud to do his duty. _

 

The first poem of this selection is labelled:  _ Suicide in the Trenches.  _ Europeans always did have a lack of subtlety.  Disinterested, Hanzo only skims it out of habit and he finds him stalling at a line he’s always stalled at:

 

_ The hell where youth and laughter go. _

 

The hell where youth and laughter go. The hell where youth and laughter went was when Hanzo was twenty five, twenty years before he was expected to really have to take over for his aging but still virile father. Genji was alive and vibrant and only twenty-two, having the time of what was supposed to be his life. Hanzo worked under his father after graduating college; sometimes Genji could bully him into going to wherever Genji was going that night. Usually it was karaoke with his friends, or some sort of bar with loud music. Occasionally it would just be the two brothers off to do whatever Genji wanted. 

 

Truthfully, Hanzo enjoyed it. It made him feel normal. 

 

But that wasn’t the case at that time. Now he was in Kyoto, in an chrome skyscraper that towered into the sky among other skyscrapers. He and his father sat in an empty conference room awaiting the arrival of a long time contact with the Korean drug front. There had been many lost shipments and the contact was asking for more protection; his father expected to hold her accountable for the lost income.  Shimada Goro popped his back and his neck while Hanzo texted angrily on his phone. Three suited guards with sunglasses and ear pieces stood silently behind the two, hands in front of them and legs spread.

 

With a sigh, Hanzo sent the long paragraph to Genji, which was immediately read. Genji was supposed to be there with Hanzo and father. He had _ said _ he would be there but Genji was somewhere off in the city, probably with the people who  _ bought  _ the Shimada drugs, ignoring his responsibilities. Hanzo couldn’t find himself to be too angry, mostly frustrated with his brother’s insistent flakiness. The meeting itself was small and really insignificant in the scheme of things. Meeting outside of Hanamura was just a nicety due to the contacts long trip. However, their father had commanded the brothers to be there. So Hanzo went.

 

Genji did not. This was a habit Hanzo had many years to break.

 

There was a ping. Genji reluctantly (how he stressed the word) said he would arrive as soon as he could scramble up something decent and sober up. His message was punctuated with many displeased kaomoji. Hanzo sent him his own displeased string of kaomoji. He had begun to text something else when the doors opened. Hanzo pocketed his phone.

 

Their Korean contact was a small woman with a tongue like lightning and a wit like thunder, but the physical strength of the cloud that held both. Her hair was drawn neatly up, her clothes ironed and her shoes shiny. Two guards in similar getup to the Shimada’s own flanked her sides, looking more or less bored. 

 

“Min Ji,” Goro said, with a slight incline of his head.

 

“Goro-sama,” Mi Jin said. She dropped into a deep bow; Hanzo had to swallow his sneer.  _ Another brownnoser _ . Min Ji raised herself to her full height again and politely motioned to the three cushions on the floor below. “How is your family,” she began politely. 

 

“They are well, thank you,” Goro replied politely. He moved to sit down. His mouth was open to say something but:

 

Like granite hitting granite, a shot rang out through the meeting room. 

 

_ Sniper. _

 

The window shattered into millions of tiny, reflective pieces. Even as Hanzo whipped his head to look for the source, his father was slumping to the ground. Hanzo couldn’t tear his eyes away, and the shards were still falling, loud like a windchime. Blood was beginning to leak down the side of his Father’s temple. Hanzo reached out to catch his father before he hit the ground. 

 

Another shot broke through the day, and across the room, Min Ji drops.

 

Hanzo cradles his father's bleeding husk to his chest, letting the blood stain his white shirt. “Otou-san!” Hanzo calls pathetically, like a child, before he can help himself. His guards are yelling into their earpieces, but Hanzo can’t hear them. Sound loses substance and all Hanzo can do is hold his father to his chest and call for him, over and over. He does not stir. His breast grows damp with warm blood and a dark mass that might have been brain.

 

But his father was dead. His father was dead even before he Hanzo turned his head to look. 

 

This Hanzo can identify as the flashpoint where everything began to, in english,  _ go to shit _ .

 

Hanzo’s heart isn’t in it as he flips through more worn pages and skims more poems. He has the book practically memorized; it has been his companion for almost ten years. Hours pass before he shakes himself from his reverie and looks up again. Time has passed quicker than he can justify; the sun is now securely in the sky. By his estimate, it must have been about three hours. 

 

Three hours wasted staring at a book and thinking of a different life. 

 

Hanzo’s stomach rumbles uncomfortably; he is reminded of how little he has eaten. But he is unwilling to go into the kitchen, where there are surely people. The cowboy might have even gotten up from wherever he went to lick his wounds, and if he didn’t know the true nature of Hanzo last night, he knew now. 

 

Hanzo does not want to see them. He does not want to feel their stares on his back, feel their false kindness. He does not deserve even the false kindnesses, and Mei’s gentle nursing of his bleeding hand and Hana’s casual acceptance of him made him ornery. It made him uncomfortable. He lived his life with blades to his back and he felt as if he walked into the den of lions. He wants to be alone.

 

But the beast wearing Genji’s name drew him out of his confinement, rubbed salt in wounds that would never heal, and so here he is. 

 

Hanzo will wait until they are all asleep or at least inactive. 

 

Hanzo browses his book for the remaining hours, thinking idly of the words and the prose, the phrases and his life. His stomach lived in a constant state of anxious rocking, and his mind switched between Genji and his father, the base full of people, the doctor whose steely eyes stared into him, and the vague sickness that left his throat acidic. Normally one would associate the constant headaches and nausea with a cold, but Hanzo associates it with his life. When it all just became too much, Hanzo put aside the book and  _ attempted _ to meditate. Mostly he zoned out. He might have even slept. He cannot tell. He wastes away the day like this. 

After the sun just begins to set at a stunning 9 pm, a sputtering roar came distantly screaming from the lowlands. Hanzo turned his eyes to the gate manned by a road, and within minutes, a rusted old hovertruck coasts into view from the empty main road entrance. The gates slide open for the vehicle; the car doesn’t even stop completely before he can see Reinhardt, the older soldier, sprinting out of an open hangar and approaching the truck. The truck is still cruising slowly when Reinhardt goes around to side and bangs on the driver side window. The man is yelling something, joyously, but Hanzo cannot hear his words aside from a vague noise in the wind. 

 

In the end, Reinhardt pull open the door of the truck himself and hauls… a child?  _ No, that is a beard--- _ an abnormally short  _ man _ out and hugs him tight to his chest.  

 

Hanzo can tell even from his distance that they are laughing.

 

A reunion. 

 

More members of Overwatch streak out of the hangar. Winston and Oxton and Zeigler,  they too approach the truck, arms stretched out for a hug. Reinhardt won’t share the man, laughing as he carries the newcomer out of range. The newcomer doesn’t like this; he’s beating Reinhardt’s chest. He kicks his legs when Reinhardt passes him on like a bag of rice. 

 

He can hear their combined laughter, their multilingual greetings like ghosts on the wind, and he feels as if he is prying on something private.

 

He sees more people approaching from the side. One person noticed the distorted shadow of the base, and with a hand shading his eyes, turns up to look at Hanzo. With a jolt, Hanzo recognizes McCree.

 

He gathers his things, quickly, puts the book in his _ jyudo-ji  _ and shimmies down the curving roof and catapults back into the communication tower. It’s draftier than it was earlier but blessfully silent; the only sound is the sound of his iron heels breaking already broken glass. With everyone outside, Hanzo deems it safe to wander back down the stairs and the militaristic unending hallway to his room and the kitchen.

 

This long unending hallway reminds him of another, filled with paper walls and warriors of equal caliber. The reunion just outside these walls of several similar, Hanzo and Genji crashing into their father’s legs when he returns unharmed---

 

Hanzo stops himself there. He forcibly halts his thoughts, he shoves them aside, he schools his face and forgets about those memories.  _ That is a life he left behind; you are dead to them. _

 

The kitchen is indeed empty, and Hanzo takes this chance to stock up on what he can. He weighs the risk of actually cooking something for himself but deems it too possible. Instead he takes a paper plate and fills it full to bursting; what doesn’t fit is stashed away in his shirt. Fruits, vegetables he grabs by the handful. They will be raw and some bitter but it is better than  _ nothing _ . He grabs three cartons of water and hesitates over the block of cheese. It is so  _ western _ ,cheese. When did he last have cheese? What he truly craves is rice but this is no Hanamura and there is no time. 

 

He holds the plate against his hip as he briefly explores other cabinets. There is a variety of dried goods; chips, pastas, baking mixes, and Hanzo is startled to even find rice. He supposes there are Zhou and Song here who too must miss rice. But he leaves it on the shelf; he does not want to linger more than necessary.

 

In a small cabinet beside the stove, Hanzo finds alcohol. A lot of it. A whole cabinet.

 

It is lukewarm, western, bitter, unsophisticated, but still Hanzo squats and goes through each bottle, peering critically at the alcohol content. The farther back he gets, the larger the percentage goes. Hanzo had just satisfied himself with a 45% bottle of german  _ something  _ when he hears the scuffling of feet behind him. He turns, bowl on hip and alcohol in the other, and faces down Song and Mccree.

 

The two look at him, his food, his alcohol. Song seems unaffected but Mccree lets out an accusatory hum. “I swore I saw a rat _ ,”  _ he drawls bitterly.

 

Ah. The hostility. There it was.

 

“I am surprised you still see well, old man,” Hanzo says without inflection. He had miscounted everyone outside; he should have made sure they were all outside. Stupid, stupid, _ stupid. _

  
“Now, hold on,” Mccree starts, genuine distaste working his way into his voice. Song glances sharply between them, her calculating eyes reaching up to Mccree’s distorted face and Hanzo’s carefully emotionless one. She interrupts, “I guess you two have met? Cowboy man arrived at about 2 am last night and crashed on the couch.  _ Any _ way, we’re just here to grab some booze because this old guy is back? Woo, celebration, yadda, yadda,” Song motions to the open cabinet behind Hanzo. “I see you already found it.”

 

There’s a couch here. Interesting.

 

“We did briefly meet earlier,” Hanzo deadpans. “I was not impressed.”

 

“I ain’t never been welcomin’ in the keenest sense.”

 

“You must think me a fool, if that is the line you are selling me.”

 

“I was welcomin’ as could be. Your participation was the lackin’ part.”

 

“Yes, I am sure the conversation would have been  _ stimulating _ .”

 

The two men were practically at each other's throats. Hanzo’s hands might have literally been at his throat were they not full. Song, who grew increasingly more displeased the more they bickered, squeezed herself between the two and said, “Hey, old men! Do you  _ literally mind? _ ”

 

She went ignored.

 

“You bet your britches, short stuff. Now I already  _ heard _ from Angie what kind of man you claim to be and I ain’t findin’ myself particularly  _ forthcomin’  _ to any conversing from someone a’your caliber.”

 

That stung more than Hanzo expected it to, but it was just a rush of sealed shame. Shame, guilt and embarrassment bloomed in his stomach in equal measure. Were it ten years ago, he would excuse them to somewhere private and strangle the life from Mccree with his own hands. But now, he will not even excuse themselves, he will do it with  _ god as his witness _

 

“Of my caliber? I was not aware words could be said in any particular order and still have value.”

 

“Care for me to rephrase then?”

 

“I dare you too, in fact.”

 

“ _Fratricide.”_ Hanzo put the plate on the stove. “ _Murderer.”_ Hanzo set the alcohol on the counter with a _think_ “ _Kinslayer!”_ Hanzo didn’t even need to unsheath his weapon to kill this uncouth inbred moron.

 

Hanzo moved towards the taller man, intent to break his nose  _ personally _ , but just then Song stepped between them and shoved them apart with strength Hanzo honestly didn’t expect. “Seriously,  _ stop! _ You’re acting like a bunch of 13-year-olds! Jesse!” Song turned to Mccree, who had watched Hanzo’s quick ascent to violence unconcerned; then again, Hanzo hadn’t gotten the chance to slug him yet. He’d  _ give _ him a reason to be afraid.

 

Song shoved Mccree out of the kitchen while Mccree loudly protested. Song interrupted his pleas all the while, “I don’t-- I don’t--- I  _ said _ I don’t care! Leave! Seriously, go!”

 

“ _ What’d I do?”  _ Jesse wailed. 

 

“ _ You know what you did. Go! _ ”

 

The stomp of spurs faded away and Hana turned back to Hanzo. She was furious. “And you!”

 

Hanzo refused to cower to a nineteen year old (but her ferocity did stun him). “ _ And you! _ Now I knew you were stupid, but I didn’t think you were dull enough to not notice that Mcree was like, totally baiting you on! He wanted to see how you would react and you fell  _ straight  _ into it. I haven’t seen dumber and the youngest of my squad was 13!  _ 13!” _

 

How did he end up here.

 

“Don’t talk to your elder that way, Song. This does not concern you.”

 

“Yeah, it didn’t, until you guys were at each other’s throats while I was right there!  _ Hanzo _ , listen,” Hana’s voice grew lower.

 

“ _ Shimada-san,  _ Song.”

 

“Shimada-san,” Song allows with a groan, “You’re just not in a place to be picking fights right now, okay?”

Hanzo had to disagree. He very much wanted to pick a fight with him right now, and his residual irritation bled out onto Song.

 

“I do not need advice from  _ you _ ,” He snapped. However, as soon as he began to speak he regretted his harsh words.

 

“Whatever! Don’t say I didn’t try,” With a sigh, Hana snatched Hanzo’s abandoned alcohol and stormed out herself. 

 

His alcohol. 

 

Hanzo frowned. He opened and closed his fists several times, aching for something in them or on them or  _ colliding _ with them. Instead he just turned back to the alcohol cabinet and pawed through it again. He had grabbed the one with the largest alcohol content (which Song just took, that  _ brat)  _ so he had to renew his search for something sufficiently mind numbing. He found a vodka that was borderline poisonous and clutched it and his goods to his chest. 

 

He refused to call what he was doing ‘fleeing’. 

 

But still he locked the door behind him, dropped his goods on the drawers, and sat defeated on the bed. The waiting in this place was the worst part. He waited for the machine to come kill him, he waited for the cowboy to leave, he waited for the kitchen to be empty, he waited for the sun to set and then for the sun to rise. Hanzo was a patient man, but death had kept him waiting for a decade now.

 

He was just ready for it to be over. That would be easier in the long run.

 

With a grunt, Hanzo shrugged out of the uncomfortable kyudo-gi and shucked off his hakama. He struggled briefly when they caught on the edge of his prosthetics, and with a curse he pulled it so hard that the seam ripped.

 

“ _ Kuso _ ,” Hanzo snapped. He would have to fix that later, if he bothered to. He shoved the ruined pants to the floor and collapsed on the bed in nothing but his boxers and shame.

 

Hanzo turned his face into the mattress and let out a series of aggravated groans. Here he was, nearly forty but here he sat in his boxers, trembling with adolescent frustration with not a coin to his name when once he was to rule an  _ empire _ . How far the great had fallen.

 

With one hand, he reached over and searched for the alcohol. He took a few slaps but he found it, and he raised it to his mouth and took several large gulps.

 

It burned as it went down; it’s much stronger than the sake he usually consigns himself too. But Hanzo drinks it fast enough that soon he’ll be drunk out his mind and unable to consider his own various failures.

 

The night was wiped away.


	3. What are men to rocks and mountains

> “What are men to rocks and mountains?”  
>  ****—Jane Austen, _Pride and Prejudice_

* * *

 

In the morning, Hanzo wakes up and finds himself plastered onto the cool floor of his bathroom without a memory of how he actually got there. The discarded alcohol is empty next to his head. Speaking of his head, it throbs in a way comparable to the many concussions Hanzo’s found himself with; it’s a piercing kind of throbbing at nearly makes Hanzo just go to sleep again. Instead, he groans loudly and pries himself off the floor. His skin sticks to the floor and there’s an audible smacking as Hanzo pries himself off the floor. 

Disgusting. Hanzo is disgusting.

 

The world spins as Hanzo pries himself off the floor. He grips the sink with one hand and pulls himself up from the floor. His stomach twists uncomfortably and Hanzo heaves, but nothing come up. He leans halfway onto the sink, trusting the ancient thing to support his weight and Hanzo stares into the mirror. 

 

Good god.

 

His face is swallow, greasy, and there’s tile marks on his cheek from where he was passed out. His eyes are bloodshot, crusty. Sometime in the night Hanzo had put his piercings back in for whatever reason, and his bridge piercing glints crookedly at him.  _ Drunk Hanzo can’t do anything right _ . Hanzo straightened the piercing with a wince and ponders his appearance much more. He picks some at his face, examines the grease on his face and ponders whether he’s too old to get acne. Possibly, is his conclusion, but the risk is too great.

 

Hanzo washes his face and splashes it liberally with cold water.  _ Never again.  _

 

The cold water makes him feel a little alive, at least. He shrugs out of his crinkled traditional clothes, leaves them heaped on the floor by the toilet, and steps into the single stall shower. The water is ice against his skin, quickly leaving Hanzo pink and trembling, but despite himself Hanzo doesn’t touch the toggles. He emptily washes his hair with his (stolen) shampoo, emotionlessly rubs in condition, gives himself a numb rubdown. He feels cleaner. 

 

Hanzo’s thoughts wander. 

 

He grapples with the splitting headache he has (he tries to remember some sort of diagram that talks about types of headaches), he takes into account his sore muscles and stiff joints, his irritated stumps. He tries to retrace his steps. He hits a sudden wall around a fourth of the way through the bottle. There’s disconnected memories that he’s not quite sure of-- falling onto the dresser, tripping over Stormbow. Strewing his clothes all over the room in search of something.

 

What was he looking for? His possessions are few and far between. He has a few pairs of clothes, Stormbow, his arrows and quiver, and his book. All things he can safely carry on his person or in a small drawstring. What was he looking for, in his inebriated state?

 

_ My brother, probably _ . Hanzo muses to himself. He laughs before he can help it, but the sound is empty. 

 

Hanzo turns off the water. 

 

He lets himself drip dry. He just leaves his clothes on the floor, where they soak up the leaking water, and walk uncaring through his room. He collapses on his bed, considers getting under the sheets, but dismisses it as he doesn’t want wet sheets later.  Instead he just tucks his hands under his stomach for warmth and calls it good. Not like he had anyone to see, anyway. 

 

Suddenly his stomach turned, acid sat high in his throat, and the sun peeking through the large bay window caused a red burst of pain right on Hanzo’s temples. But he didn’t move. The outside world had no ebb or push on his own emotions, no sort of weight in the room. In his room, there was only Hanzo and Hanzo. Hanzo closes his eyes. 

 

He doesn’t know how long he laid there. Eventually he drifted off again.

 

When he wakes, he’s face down in the soft comforter and pleasantly warm all over. The sun has peeked through the narrow pane of glass to illuminate his bare back, leaving the suntouched warmth that is only ruined by moving. His headache is still thrumming and pleasant above his right ear, but he’s not as sore as he was before he slept. 

 

Deceived by the bed, by the sun, by the brief moment of foolishness after unconsciousness, he yells: “span title="carrot boy, can you bring me some painkillers?">ニンジンくん! タイレノールを連れてきてくれますか？” He stops himself dead at the end of the sentence.

 

Rage rises like a tidal wage, and with an aggravated roar, he slams raises a clenched fist and  _ slams _ it into the mattress.  _ How dare he-- he killed him-- the audacity-- _

 

Hanzo jolts out of his bed and upright. He yanks on the one pair of sweatpants he owns, and scours the room in vain for a shirt. He can’t justify putting on the wet kimono top he has in the bathroom,  _ won’t _ put on the sweaty tanktop. With an irritated groan, Hanzo kicks the dresser hard enough to leave a dent in it’s hard light side.

 

With a roar, he throws open the door hard enough for it to hit his wall. He storms into the hallway and into the commons. Oxton, Song, and Mccree are curled up on the couch watching the news when he storms past. They stop and stare at him, mouths open in surprise. At his rage or his nudity? Hanzo doesn’t care which. He does not talk to him as he stomps down the stairs into the laundry room. 

 

He grabs laundry detergent, fabric softener. He pushes nearly an entire rack to the floor in his urgent search for bleach. Bleach.  _ Warm water and bleach for blood _ , he thinks to himself bitterly as he storms back up the stairs, the three bottles of detergent in his right hand. He barely remembers to grab a laundry cold and clothespins as he storms past, and they’re clenched in his right fist as well. 

 

The three of them seem to be expecting Hanzo when he storms past. They’re turned round on the couch, watching him with surprised and confused expressions. They all send each other a  _ look _ when Hanzo slams the door open with his open hand. “ _ What? _ ” Hanzo barks at them, all clashing canines. 

 

They share a look again. Mccree opens his mouth, “Somethin’ got you a bit irritated there?” He drawls.

 

Hanzo raises the arm laden with washing detergent threateningly. Mccree puts his palms up in the universal manner of  _ sorry, sorry, didn’t mean nothing _ .

 

As Hanzo storms past, he hears Mccree lean over to Oxton and say, “Reckon he’s ‘bout to come out with a sword or somethin’ an’ begin stabbin’?”

 

Hanzo whipped around so fast and wound up for a good toss of bleach at Song was preemptively taking cover behind Mccree. Mccree shrank back and put his hands up again. Yet as Hanzo disappeared into his room, he still heard Mccree mumble  _ something else. _

 

Hanzo just grits his teeth and slams his door. 

 

For the next half hour he does his laundry while the three of them-- maybe more-- are curled up on the couch outside watching TV. Hanzo is filling his sink with lukewarm water, grumbling and dumping unmeasured mixes of detergent and softener, and he can hear their laughter from down the hall.

 

He can hear their  _ laughter _ from down the hall. The thought makes something Hanzo thought dead in his chest clench painfully, makes him bite his lip and furrow his brows and grip the sink until his chest stops hurting with every heartbeat and the longing in his bones go. The water is steaming now, and reaches his knuckles.

 

Hanzo starts with the darks. He’s far too used to doing his laundry in the washbasin. 

 

He’s snuck out his window and hung up his clothes when he feels the first gnawing teeth of hunger.  He’s thirsty, hunger aching at his bones as the acidic taste of vomit licks at his teeth, but he won’t go anywhere. They must still be outside, on the couch, mocking him with their conversation and talk.

 

Days pass this way. In the dead of night he sneaks into the kitchen for food and sustenance, but he would return to his room as soon as possible and stayed holed there for the entirety of the day. He had a bathroom, he had a bed, he had a book; in this way he could entertain himself for years. What more is he to be, to do? In his past life, his days would be filled to the brim with lessons and meetings with gang members and allies, and later filled with budget meetings and drug trafficking requests and skype calls with foreign branches. But now he sits in his room, early in the morning to late at night, reading or sleeping. More than others he is drinking.

 

He drinks. He himself steadily goes through a bottle, maybe two a night. He remembers starting them but never finishing them, waking up with them in his hand but not remembering falling asleep. Luckily, he locks himself in most days. If he wanders during the night, no one sees him or no one mentions it.

 

But liquor is a poor substitute for company. He had little want or need for companionship over the last ten years but that wasn’t to say that he was alone. Often he found himself working in one large city for months on end, surrounded on all sides by a colorful and diverse crowd that he could easily slip into unseen. He was most often cornered by assassins and ill-wishers only when he struck out truly on his own. 

 

It feels strange, is all. But he hardly needs  _ them _ . 

 

But truth be told (for all how rarely he told it): He was tired of his thoughts turning over prose and verses in his head, he was tired of seeing Genji’s lifeless body behind his eyelids and seeing the automaton with his  _ eyes _ . He wanted something different, he wanted to sit quietly in a crowd and listen to the manyfold stories of the herd and delight in for once not being surrounded by  _ himself. _ His thoughts, his nightmares, his regrets, his voice and his comments, his alcoholic stench and he _ detested  _ it. He hated stewing in his filth like some sort of urchin. He was the Lord of the Shimada, last of his line, first of his name, Dragon of the South Wind and here he was locked up in a room a million miles away from home smelling stale and feeling sulky like some sort of misplaced teenager.

 

He hated it. _ (He hated himself). _

 

But he found himself too prideful, too fearful of other’s thoughts of him to venture out and socialize, even the partially friendly faces of Song and Zhou.  _ I will die soon regardless _ . He would be just a moment in their lives.  _ Mono no Aware _ , they called it in Japan. The transience of life.

 

_ What is the point? _

 

Occasionally Athena would chime into his room, alerting him of arrivals that he didn’t care any for.  Lucio arrived a few hours into the new day. Winston returned from a supply run. Movie night in the den. Hanzo Shimada, Agent So-and-So have inquired about you. 

 

Inquired about what, he says.

 

Your location, Athena replies.

 

Whether or not I am still here? He asks.

 

Yes, Athena replies.

 

Of course, Hanzo spits. 

 

Finally on the fourth day (of course Genji is late, he  _ always is _ ) Athena tells him something he wants to hear. “Hanzo Shimada,” Athena’s voice comes down from the ceiling when the sun is just cracking the sky, her voice cracking the silence like moses splitting the Red Sea.

 

Hanzo grunts in reply. He does not care if someone is wondering if he left the base, Athena, didn’t they go over this yesterday?

 

“You requested to know the arrival time of Agent: Genji Shimada.”

 

Hanzo pushes himself up from the bed so fast that his aging elbows creak in protest, the book he was sleeping on forgotten and drooled on. “Yes,” his voice is a mix of hungover regret and stuffed throat. He takes a moment to clear it.  “I did.”

 

“Agent: Genji Shimada’s arrival is slotted for an hour from now via dropship flew by Pilot: Lena Oxton. Is there anything else you need, Hanzo Shimada?”

 

Hanzo flies out of bed. His laundry, folded haphazardly on top of his dresser, is easy to slip into. There’s something mechanical and grounding about tying the legs of his hakama closed at the knee, the crossing of his  _ kyudo-ji _ . He stops as he habitually crosses it over left to right. 

 

Would they bother, when disposing of him?

 

He crosses it over right to left and ties his scarf around his waist before he can think too much about it. Stormbow is a welcome, familiar and missed weight. 

 

Song is in the hallway, stretching for her morning jog. She glances up at him, but goes back to paying attention to her toes. “The old recluse is alive,” she snips sarcastically as she reaches for a toe. Hanzo’s half tempted to say something to her, some sort of  _ last word _ , but instead he just somberly says, “Indeed I am.”

 

“What’s with the clothing? Weapons today?”

 

“Going out.” 

 

He follows the path he set days ago. He ignores the agents serving themselves breakfast, the raised eyebrows and even the calls for his name, and he is accompanied by no one asd he walks his walk of shame to the hangar. 

 

He had spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about when or how he would confront Genji. Would he meet him off the ship? Would Genji track him to his room? Would Hanzo simply await for them to collide like stars in this base? Would he run from death? Would Genji, like death, follow and gain up on?

 

Something aside from his legs were tired of running, though. So he decided to greet death like an old friend (which Genji was once, he supposed).

 

The hangar is only empty for a good more fifteen minutes before the shuttle doors pull open with a rusted creaking. The morning light spills in, fills the cold concrete chamber, and the rush of warm gym sent Hanzo’s gathered up hair fluttering in the wind. The arrival of the dropship, with it’s   white-hot engines, warmed up the hangar as well. 

 

The landing was loud, both terrible in it’s greatness and in it’s symbolism. Hanzo had never particularly been a lyrical sort of man, but where he to write a poem about his last moments he would mention the finality about the metal legs hitting the floor.

 

The door opened.

 

Genji stood proud and tall in the door. He was looking off towards the pilot, laughing at something Oxton had said, motioning to another to come closer. Hanzo stands and rises to meet him. Genji stands tall and silver, like what the Statue of Liberty would be before time took her brilliance,  and his circular green lights dimmed when he turned to face Hanzo.

 

Vent on his shoulders raise, steam races out. Hanzo takes a breath in; it is not his brother. 

 

The cyborg advances to him confidently, a swagger that is (familiar) arrogant and with his arms spread wide. “Have you thought on your decision?” The man who stole Genji’s name asks. 

 

  
“What decision? You offered me no question,” Hanzo barks, brusque. He shies away from the cyborg’s gesture. Would he just  _ do  _ it already?

 

There’s an omnic getting off the dropship, in pace with Oxton. He’s floating a good foot off the ground, a mix of brass and gold, ragged cloth of what have might have been pants once. They pause and look at the two brothers, squaring off again.

 

The omnic takes her by the elbow and walks past them. Hanzo watches them as they go.

“Genji” waves the two goodbye dismissively. “You are not blind, brother.” 

_ As much as I would like to be. _

 

“Again events grow at the fever peak. Mondatta Tehkhartha was assassinated just recently, and the world will not be the same. Tensions grow. Dams will break, as they inevitably do. I just want to know if you will be on one side, or the other.”

 

“Why waste your breath on riddles when you can give to me plain?” Hanzo says.

 

The automaton cocks his head in annoyance. “You cannot continue to stand aside while the world tears itself apart, Hanzo, just like you did when Overwatch was formed.”

 

“You are invited to try to stop me.” The world had long stopped caring for Hanzo; what did he owe a world that set him on a path to fratricide? 

 

“Perhaps I am wrong, but I believe that was what we are both here, trying to do. Convince  _ you _ to charge your ways.” The beast strolls towards him without a care in the world. 

 

“You lead me here, you lead me away from my home, from my work… For a  _ moral intervention? _ ”

 

The armor stopped to consider, waved his hand like he would disagree, but then shrugged and agreed. “Yes, I guess that’s it.”

 

Hanzo clenched his fist to his heartbeat. Once. Twice. “You waste my time. Do what you are here to do--  _ kill me  _ or--,” Hanzo’s voice catches. _ This is not Genji, this is not Genji _ , he tells himself, but he can’t get the image of Genji’s eyes out of his  _ mind _ . His stutter is audible when he says. “Kill me or be killed!”

 

Hanzo pulls his bow off his back, notches an arrow. He could cry at the way his agitated chest lays to stillness. This is something he knows  _ very _ ,  _ very _ well.

 

Life halts. The automaton halts his retreat, and Hanzo realizes with a jolt that he stands inches taller than Hanzo himself. Genji was taller than him too. 

 

“Oh,” the beast says. It sounds disappointed. “I had thought you had a change of heart, but perhaps I  _ was _ a fool for believing you would change.”

 

“Change? Change in what way? For what purpose?”

 

“Must everything have purpose, use? Change because the world is changing, because it is  _ human _ to change. Human is a thing you have left behind, then, kinslayer?” His voice is carefully laid out, even. Where his greeting had a modicum of emotion, his carefully guarded words laced with flammatory diction. 

 

How quickly and naturally Hanzo pulls back his arrow until his bicep protests. 

 

“You  _ know _ nothing of me, machine. Killing Genji was both my duty and my burden; but you have no right to imitate his likeness or claim his name. I have killed my brother, yes, but I will pay for the rest of my days just as  _ you _ will pay for so arrogantly speaking of him!” 

 

The machine tilts his head, and his internal gears kick up from a low, harried hum to a high clicking process. He does not shy from the arrowhead pointed at his electronic throat. “So even now, you live your life for a brother you murdered  _ ten years ago _ .”

 

Hanzo’s pulse slows, his hand trembles, his voice is hoarse. To admit it out loud is more pathetic than he had previously assumed, but he still admits firmly, “Yes. To this day.”

 

Then the omnic has the gall to laugh. It is not long or loud, but his head tilts back and bares his throat. A laugh that rolls out from his chest.

 

Familiar.

 

Hanzo is stunned enough to lower his weapon, and his eyebrows form a wall on his brow, but the machine does not falter. He mumbles something Hanzo can not hear, and removes his hand. 

 

“ If your life is your brother’s to do with as he wishes, then you are bound to him by honor,” the machine ventures.

 

Hanzo inclines his head in the slightest.

 

“And your brother wishes for you to join Overwatch,” The robot offers. 

 

“Dead men wish for nothing,” Hanzo retorts, but he knows where the impostor is trying to take this. He will not. His words hold no real power.

 

“Brother, when will you accept that I am not dead? Just as the dragon returned to the earth to be mortal, I have returned in this form,” Hanzo raises his arrow again at the mention of the fairytale his father told his sons. The robot has the  _ backbone _ to take a finger and push the arrowhead away from his body. “And I can prove it,” the robot finished before Hanzo can retort.

 

Hanzo says nothing. No proof will convince him.

 

“When you and your brother were boys living in the brunt of the omnic crisis, you would escort him by hand everywhere even as you grew old. It was because Genji was fearful.” The machine’s voice takes on a dreamy, story-like tone as he recounts his tale. Hanzo’s throat closes in on him; that is a memory he had pushed aside for many, many years.

 

“What of it? All of Hanamura knows this tale!” In Hanamura, the brothers were nothing less than celebrities. When Genji died, no one said a word.

 

“But the night your mother died, in the worst aerial attack of the crisis, you admitted to your brother that that was a lie.” He remembers the sound of the bullets pelting his home’s walls like  _ yen _ hitting a countertop. The flickering lights, the rumbling of the ground as it tilted this way and that. Electricity left. 

 

There was a great boom, then silence. No gunshots. No shouts. No birds.

 

“Stay here with your brother,” she had said. “Don’t move. Don’t make a sound.” 

 

It would be the last thing she had ever said to him.

 

Hanzo’s hand grows numb. His index and middle finger were bleeding from the long hold of the bow, and he loosens the string and drops his hand. Blood drips forgotten onto the roof, but that is the least of Hanzo’s concerns. He cannot remember how to breathe.

 

“You admitted that you held his hand not because he was afraid, but because you were.”

 

The arrow slides from his grip, forgotten, and it tumbles down onto the concrete landing pad, forgotten. 

 

Hanzo cannot remember how to breathe. He finds his chest tightening, neck spasming, and his gut drops to the soles of his prosthetic feet. He stumbles back a few feet and hits the wall hard enough to knock the breath gently out of his chest.  He recovers by digging hard on his knee, but by the time he’s down he can hardly see. His mind is spinning.

 

A tale no one knew. A tale no one knew. Hanzo had never told a soul aside from his brother, with whom he was allowed to show fear and vulnerability; he had no fears to share and no insecurities to pass around. He had only told Genji in the midst of an argument, when they were younger, and Hanzo wanted to be  _ human _ again.

 

Genji is alive. Genji is alive, he’s living, how could he  _ live _ through what Hanzo did to him? His sword, sharpened that morning, he knew when he woke up, he watched it himself, his sword over and over and over. Superficial, painful, aiming for where it would hurt,  _ make an example of him _ they said, and he was, and Genji’s begging for mercy and calling his name but he’s in another place. Mercy kill. Mercy kill. A mechanical transition from slash to stab, heel of the hand on the hilt of the sword, push with your heart,  _ you’ve got to mean it son _ , but he doesn’t mean it, he doesn’t mean it at all.

 

He gasps in an attempt to take in air, to take in  _ something _ , and Genji ( _ Genji!) _ hums above him.

 

“If your life is mine, then your life is Overwatch’s. Welcome to the family, brother.” Genji departs, and the morning is silent.

 

Hanzo cannot move, cannot breathe, cannot see. His brother is alive. His brother is  _ alive. _

  
  


He doesn’t know how long he stays in the hangar like that, his chest tightening rhythmically and his mouth gasping for breath, eyes stinging with ignored tears. Sometime during this he retreats to his room, but he doesn’t remember the walk from one place to another. He just suddenly finds himself on his bed, staring at his hands, without a memory to spare.

 

His life is no longer his own. What he can remember of the conversation is already fading away in his panicked haze, but he recalls clearly the claiming of his life. It is just a verbal bond, easily broken, but Hanzo has a debt to pay. He can’t walk away from his mistakes. Despite this, despite the fact that he deserves to be locked on this rock, the thought of being  _ controlled _ again sends him reeling.

 

He swore to himself many years ago that he would never take orders again. How easily he bowed his head to the elders when they ordered him to kill his blood; he had nary a word to say in Genji’s defense. He sold his integrity and honor for the illusion of power and control when in fact there was no such thing. Empty words. Empty promises. Empty castles. Empty caskets.

 

Again he is at the will of another. 

 

Restlessly, Hanzo stands up and paces the room. He does not know what he’s looking for, but fruitlessly he prowls. He crosses from one end of the room to another, picks up clothes, folds them, unfolds them, enters the bathroom and turns on the light, turns it off, sits back on the bed and then stands up. The room which had been his sanctuary for the last few days is suddenly too small for Hanzo’s person.  He eventually stands at the door, hand hovering over the handle. 

 

He drops his hand, and anxiously he fusses with his hands.

 

They must be out there. Genji, Mccree, even Song with her self assured intellect. They would look at him, look at his wandering hands and tattoo sleeve and know what he is.

 

He crosses back to the bed. He collapses onto it, composure thrown to the wind. He moves to grab his book but then retreats. Instead, he burrows himself under the covers and tries to forget that he exists.

 


	4. We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo is inducted as an official member of Overwatch (against his wishes) and therefore, he must attend obligatory practices (against his wishes).

> “We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.” Enrich Maria Remarque   
> 
> 
>  

* * *

 

  
  
Hanzo is inducted as an official member of Overwatch. He is sure that some of them must have raised a fuss, McCree at the very least, but he sees none of it. He wasn’t there for the decision. Every member except himself was shuffled into an ancient, dusty boardroom to talk about Hanzo’s existence. He would  _ prefer _ if they rejected him and banished him. He wouldn’t even protest if they decided to kill him for knowing too much, even. But alas, Genji’s word was on his side and Overwatch’s desperate need for personnel saw him inducted in a week’s time.    
  
Hanzo finds out through Genji.

 

Unfortunately. 

 

His possible brother knocks very politely on his door, which is the only reason Hanzo opens it. He  is expecting any other person; Song, Winston, perhaps even McCree? Some part of him thought that Genji would just stride in like he always used to, when they were younger. 

 

Hanzo is toweling his wet hair when he opens the door. It swings open, revealing Genji.Hanzo stops toweling his hair. Genji just looks at him.

 

Hanzo shuts the door.

 

Or tries too, anyway. Genji wedges his foot into the crack of the door and pushes himself in. Hanzo makes a huffed displeased noise, but obediently stands back and allows Genji to stride in.

 

His chrome mask pivots as he examines his room. He looks into the bathroom, still emitting steam from Hanzo’s shower, the laundry detergent stashed between the toilet and sink, the various clothes on the floor. Hanzo’s sole book. 

 

“I see you do not get out much,” Genji says cattily. 

 

“ _ What did you want, again? _ ” Hanzo snaps. He is already out of patience; his heart is hammering fast in his chest and his palms grow slick and cold the longer Genji lingers here. 

 

“Perhaps to visit. May I not visit my dearest older brother?” The teasing tone feels out of place, so does the tilt of Genji’s head and the huffed chuckle that’s barely audible.

 

“ _ No.” _

 

Genji lets out a tortured sigh and pushes past Hanzo. He kicks aside the clothes on the floor, letting out another irritatingly sarcastic sigh before he collapses on Hanzo’s bed. Hanzo can not think of a single polite way to say  _ get the fuck out of here. _

 

The silence between them lies gluttonous and awkward, as Genji sighs and groans melodramatically on  _ Hanzo’s bed _ and Hanzo is bodily telling himself to not turn tail and book it to the nearest ship headed for Hanamura.

 

Genji twiddles his fingers.  _ Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick. _ He reaches over to the bedside and paws at the old novel. He flicks open the first few pages, zooms past the rest, and peers with false interest upon the annotated poems.

 

“I didn’t know you had an interest in poetry,” Genji says politely.

 

“It began in college,” Hanzo says bluntly. Before he can stop himself, he speaks again, like a gunpowder barrel in his chest went off with a resounding explosion. “You would not remember. You were sober for very few of those years.”

 

Genji slams the book shut and looks at Hanzo.

 

Hanzo looks at Genji deadpan. Genji’s vent urgently unlatch and release a copious amount of steam.

 

“You hardly have the right to act as the injured party here,” Genji says, an undercurrent of irritation. “I am just trying to talk to you.”

 

“I have no interest in  _ talking _ .” 

 

“I see that. But you must talk to me eventually.”

 

_ Watch me _ , Hanzo thinks bitterly, but instead he says, “We do indeed have a long future of serving Overwatch together.” The bitterness in his tone reminded Hanzo of cheap, burning alcohol.

 

Genji says nothing, his face unreadable underneath his mask.  After a moment of silence, he stands up and approaches Hanzo. He stands only a few inches taller than Hanzo himself, the top of Hanzo’s head up to the bridge of where his nose  _ should _ be. “Speaking of,” Genji says.

 

“You have been accepted as a full member of Overwatch. Winston is expecting much of you,”  _ Who does not? _ “There is practice at 1400. Mandatory attendance. Largest gymnasium.” He breezes towards the door without further words.

 

Hanzo watches him go. He clenches his teeth until it hurt, dug his nails into his palm, and tries his best to hide his sneer and tremble. 

Genji lays a hand on the knob of the door and stops. He does not turn in the slightest to look at Hanzo when he says, “It would do you good to remember we are not at arms, brother.”

 

And he is gone. 

  
  


  
As soon as the door is closed, Hanzo turns to the wall and kicks it. Hard. It only due to the enforced steel beams that his foot does not go clear through the wall into the next room. 

 

  
1400 is only a half hour away; Genji hardly gave him time to prepare himself. Hanzo sighs, resigned to his fate. He is part of Overwatch now, like it or not. He goes through the motions of grooming his hair into something presentable, taking out his piercings (he does not want them torn out), the elaborate process of dressing himself, maintenance on Stormbow, empty counting of his quiver. He’s wasting time. Stormbow is meticulously maintained (for a lack of other things to do), Hanzo has not used a single arrow since the last time he shot a bow (counting near two weeks, now).    
  
Truthfully: he just doesn’t want to go.

 

But obligatory is obligatory, and this is hardly the first time Hanzo would be forced to do something he was not keen on. 

 

_ It is not about you,  _ Hanzo thinks to himself harshly. An old train of thought, one visited often when he was young.  _ It is not about what you want, it is about what is for the good of the company. _

 

Five minutes before 1400, Hanzo leaves his room fully dressed and ready for what would be a tense situation. Put him in a room full of people he distrusted and distrusted him in return, put a weapon in his hand, and attempt to cut through the tension. Hanzo’s pessimism has always served him well in being right. 

 

The hallway is empty. Song either has left early for the practice or is arriving late.   
  
Hanzo walks alone to the practice room. He has seen it in his midnight wanderings of the Watchpoint and it isn’t anything to sneeze at. The practice room must have been state of the art ten years ago. Now it is a slightly outdated, but still technologically advanced, weaponry range. Many of the practice bots were damaged, dismantled, or simply powered down. This state of affairs was echoed throughout all of the base. Yet he knows that the Swedish engineer has been toiling away on machines for the entirety of his stay.    
  
He’s not sure what to expect.    
  
People are milling around when Hanzo walks in at exactly 1400 hours. Song is scrubbing her MEKA with a harsh wax. She is a skintight one-piece suit reinforced with bits of bullet-resistant leather on the side and in vital areas. Song glances over her shoulder at Hanzo’s entry, pops her gum once, and goes back to cleaning the machine without much ado. 

 

Across the way from her, a dark hat sits on a man’s head. McCree is leaning against a wall, taking refuge in some shadowy corner silently. He flicks up his hat to see the new arrival and looks less than pleased that it is just Hanzo. McCree chomps hard on his lit cigarello, switches it to another side of his mouth, and returns to dozing off.    
  
There are various other bodies spread around the range, but Hanzo can’t see Genji, and for that he is glad. He doesn’t know what he would say after their tense discussion (or was it an argument?) His best course of action is to avoid the cyborg like the plague, but that is harder than it used to be. Genji has an ability to seek him out with astonishing speed. Every single time Hanzo has risked going out to the kitchen, Genji had either met him there or arrived halfway through Hanzo’s brief escapade. Even at 4 am. Does Genji live for nothing but to haunt him?    
  
Hanzo glances surreptitiously around, but the cyborg is nowhere to be found. Zenyatta is in the distance, pleasantly talking to Zhou, but Genji is no where near him.    
  


Until Genji claps him on the shoulder as he passes from behind. Hanzo barely keeps himself from jumping in shock. Genji gives him a false cheery two-fingered salute as he passes, heading towards Zenyatta. There’s a box of apple juice stuck in his mask.

 

Hanzo turns to leave.   
  
Just as he turns around to exit back out of the door and avoid his brother, Winston calls on the intercom. “Alright! Since everybody is here, we’re going to start with a simulation. Your weapons have been scanned by Athena and registered as simulations,so you’ll get simulatory ammo so that you don’t need to worry about waste, as Agent McCree _very pleasantly_ reminded me about.” There’s a groan. 

 

Winston is a very stressed gorrilla.    
  
Hanzo is placed on the attack team. He has to bite his tongue to protest, as he is surely more useful on defense, but Hanzo will admit to no weakness. Instead he glowers at the defense team (McCree, Song, Zhou, Zenyatta, Genji and Torbjorn) and plods off to stand with the rest of his team. It consists of Reinhardt, Oxton, Zeigler, Lucio, Winston and himself. Knowing what he knows about his teammates, he would swap teammates. There is just too much potential mobility on his team to dismiss. He considers briefly talking to his teammates, perhaps addressing this fledging of an idea with Winston as a very mobile flanker, but he dismisses himself.

 

He isn’t kumicho here. He’s just the kinslayer. 

 

So he slogs behind his teammates as they stand on the section of the practice field reserved for them as defense team sets up. Athena triggered the simulation program as soon as Winston had finished talking, and the training room quickly changed from a slate grey room with bots and harsh lighting to a wasteland of snow.

 

It was empty and eerily silent. Hanzo’s footsteps made no sound, no crunch of snow. The metallic steps did not mesh with the surroundings, and despite being surrounded by people and things, he feels rather alone. The snow had no cold. The wind had no bite. Time, no substance.

 

The attack team is in a library at the far south of the training area. The books are simulated (Hanzo’s hand phased through them). The three entrances out are locked until the timer ticks down, and it is indeed ticking. In front of the library is a large empty building with three entrances, flanked to the right by a series of housing developments, and in front of this empty block is the chokepoint. The defense team will set up there if they have sense. The attack team has to first break through their defensive line at the chokepoint and then continue past a shelter onto the square point. On either side of the point are more buildings; unfortunate for attack, but lucky for defense. Plenty of defensible ground. Hanzo is already dotting the landscape with allies and defensive positions.  _ If he were Kumicho _ … 

 

But he is not. Besides, the Shimada clan had more resources at their disposal than Overwatch does. Hanzo would’ve sent at least a dozen men, perhaps even three dozen.

 

Overwatch has six.   
  
Oxton was blabbering about something or another as they wait in the point. Hanzo listens for a second. “-- Well, Angie, you just holler if someone, ‘specially Jesse is givin’ you trouble, and I’ll just pop right over!  
  
“Thank you! You know I’m vulnerable on my own, and in that thought, I can’t push without someone with me, so I’m going to stick by Winston or Reinhardt. If you’re far off, I can’t heal you. Stick by me and I will handle you,” Angela adds.  
  
“And I will be your shield in turn!” Reinhardt yells as Hanzo inches away.  
  
“Remember team, communication is key. If you have a thorn in your side preventing you from performing at your best, please say something. Depend on us,” Winston adds.   
  
Hanzo can’t see himself depending on any of these people, but he has a debt to repay. He will perform, as he’s always performed. His skill in combat is the only thing that has consistently seen him through the decades, even as his skill with people and his family ties dissipated. Fighting along likewise capable combatants against likewise capable combatants will be simpler than thinking. It will be simpler than breathing. A simple free fall into routine.   
  
The clock blares. The doors unlock. Winston and Reinhardt streak out first, making steady pace, with Tracer and Lucio falling short. Mercy and Hanzo follow in the back. Hanzo allows himself to watch the cliff, the large _mechs_ in the distance. Even if electronic, the sight is mesmerizing. While he dallies, the team moves ahead of him.

 

Hanzo turns just to see Genji attempt to cross the gap from a pandola across the water. Hanzo furrows his brows.

 

“Genji--,” Hanzo begins. 

 

But the rabble of the team is already following. They yell and shout, affirmatives and alerts, Mercy being the most verbal. His voice falls on deaf ears. 

 

So as Genji touches ground and readies his  _ shuriken _ , Hanzo notches his arrow. He knocks it back, breathes in…

 

_ Release _ .

 

Breathe out.

 

_ Elimination: Genji. _

 

A clean shot through the neck. The arrow had felt staticy, and the weight was off slightly, and the firing seemed off. But it connected and the arrow effectively pins Genji to the wall. He let out a strangled yell. “ _ Hanzo! _ ” He grumbles.

 

(  _ “Hanzo!” He screamed. His hand reached forward to parry his blade, his other reaching for his own weapon, feet from him, blade serrated from Hanzo’s own relentless strikes.)  _   
  
Tracer comes around the corner, eyes Genji sullenly going towards his time out center, and then Hanzo. She smiles and shoots him a thumbs up.

 

Hanzo humphs.    
  
Fighting has commenced in full force. D.VA and Reinhardt are toe to toe, though D.VA mostly just shoots his shield as the agents behind her attempt to either push through their defensive line or take out targets. Hanzo jogs to catch up.

 

On a second of thought, Hanzo scales the empty building effortlessly. He reaches the top, nocks an arrow and raises his bow as McCree ventures too far outward.    
  
Breathe in. Hold.   
  
Shoot.   
  
McCree, eliminated.    
  
Breathe out.

 

Mercy flits up beside him, focusing on her new perspective. She doesn’t look at Hanzo as she continues to pump Reinhardt and Winston with nanobots.   
  
He falls into the easy routine of aiming and shooting. Occasionally he can only do passing damage, and alert his team about engaging hostiles. He has to relocate several times, as McCree has it out for him after the first elimination of the game. He could, he supposes, jump down to lower ground and engage with the cowboy in close combat, but the idea of grappling with the man is likewise revolting. So instead, they play a game of tag around the area.

 

McCree breaks through their line and shoots off potshots at Hanzo that strike too close for comfort. So Hanzo vaults from his perch to the overpass and climbs into the little peekhole. McCree rolls  _ back _ through the defensive and offensive line, aims another shot, and nearly hits him.  _ Again. _

 

So Hanzo jumps down, dashes through the building there, up some stairs and into a stairway, Jesse dogging him all the way.

 

They go like this, Hanzo retreating to try and shake off the close-range fighter and McCree following him and pressing his limits. They pass through point A several times, through another building adjacent to the first one, and finally to the large warehouse to the immediate left of the point. 

 

McCree lands a stun on him. Hanzo’s heart beats hard in his chest, he doesn’t breathe. He doesn’t move for a moment, waiting for death. 

 

He hears McCree curse as he reloads his weapon.

 

That gives Hanzo just enough time to  _ climb _ the staircase instead of run up it,  heart pounding in his chest. McCree lets out a frustrated yell-- “ _ God damn it! _ ” And has to sprint up the steps to catch Hanzo. When he does, at the top of the staircase, Hanzo lets out an empty little chuckle and just jumps over the railing to the bottom.  _ Foolish gunslinger _ . McCree lets out  _ another _ curse and vaults the stairs as well, landing unskillfully.

 

To which Hanzo just runs up the stairs again. “ _Get back here, you slippery son of a bitch!”_   
  
“Getting tired, Gunslinger?” Hanzo taunts cruelly. 

 

“In your dreams, Archer!”   
  
Gunfire outside grows to a feverpitch. There’s screaming in Hanzo’s channel; Mercy finally finds the necessity to call out, “Hanzo, where are you?”   
  
“Occupied!” Hanzo shouts as he ducks to avoid another gunfire. He turns suddenly to advance on McCree, which seems to alarm him. With three decisive moves, Hanzo disarms him, turns his wrist around and pins his hand to his back.   
  
“Well, unoccupy yours--,” Angela’s order is cut off completely by a resounding explosion. Hanzo whips his head around to glance out the open doorway, his hair blown out of his face by a rush of heat and air. A red electromagnetic explosion has decimated point A. Snow and boxes were blown away, debris littering the ground. Around the perimeter is the entirety of Hanzo’s team. Angela sits up with a groan, holding her head, and Winston and Reinhardt are barely conscious against the edge of the building. As Hanzo watches, Zenyatta delivers a decisive kick to Zhou’s stomach.  _ Quintuple kill!  _  Hanzo’s team are taken to the elimination box to wait; a whole seven minute stall and on top of that they still have to run back to base.    
  
“Hanzo! Get on the point! They pushed while you were flirting with McCree!” Zeigler demands as she locks into the elimination box.    
  
Hanzo rears up in rage, effectively dropped McCree’s wrist . “Flirting? I--,” Hanzo’s mind, desperately turning, reaches the conclusion. McCree wasn’t chasing him down because of a grudge.   
  
He was distracting him.   
  
“You did this on purpose!” Hanzo accuses as he turns to face McCree. The man’s scrambled to grab his gun. He turns on Hanzo, business end pointed, and laughs a mocking laugh.   
  
“Ain’t my fault yer gullible, archer,” McCree shrugs. The clock ticking down time until hums.  _ Twenty seconds until the end _ .  “So self centered you can’t even think of your own team. Now, lookit that, my team’s done my job and you lost,” McCree tips his hat, “Can’t’ve expected much more from an entitled brat. You ain’t done  _ nothin’ _ by your own means, all used to bein’ told what to do like some sort of  _ puppet. _ ” Hanzo is reminded of gangs who used to declare war on the Shimada territory when they encountered Hanzo. Of the elder who spat down at him, teary-eyed and bloody over Genji’s body. Of the same elder who demeaned Hanzo as he sat in the hospital, hooked up to various life monitoring devices with his wounds bloodying the fresh bandages around his middle.   
  
The dull place where emotion once rested all at once burst into motion. Every motion until that moment seems lackluster in comparison.  _ Rage. Indignation. Insult. Hurt. The urge to put his hands around something and squeeze until it stopped struggling. _

 

Used, manipulated, taken advantage of--  _ never gain, never agian,  _ how dare he!   
  
“I will put you in your place,” Hanzo snarls, his mouth twisted into an ugly frown with his teeth bared. McCree’s face morphs into that of shock, and he doesn’t even have time to react before Hanzo has his bow swinging over his shoulder, elapsing into smooth circular movements as he attacks McCree. McCree can only desperately parry with his metal arm. 

 

Stormbow stands up to the challenge. Steadily Hanzo pushes McCree further back into the verdana.   
  
The hum intensifies.  _ Ten seconds left _ .   
  
Hanzo grabs McCree by his stupid collar and hauls him close. For one still second, Hanzo’s eyes are looking into McCree’s; all he can see is red. It would be easy, he knows, he’s been trained, the movements are nearly mechanic. One hand here on his chin, the other one here on his neck... But then he reigns in his self control,  _  just barely _ . Hanzo has other responsibilities and they will take priority over his emotions, as they  _ always have _ . Hanzo pulls McCree into the corner where forearm meets upper arm and is left dangling stuck between muscles as Hanzo takes aims his bow. McCree scrabbles uselessly at Hanzo’s arm, his metal fingers digging into his skin painfully, but the japanese man has other things to worry about rather than the American’s lack of breath.

 

_ Breathe in _ .

 

How the dragons inside him stir, and roar, and rage, a typhoon within his chest.    
  


There are two figures within the in ground base. Zenyatta and Zhou. He aims a scatter arrow on the ground and they fall.   
  
Double elimination.   
  
They lay cowed on the snow as Hanzo smartly rotates his wrist, and sends an arrow curving around to hit Song in her neck. She was standing on the point, gloating.   
  
Elimination.    
  
Torbjorn is nowhere to be found; he waits in the elimination box. Genji however, streaks onto the point in a desperate bid to hold their claim. He raises his sword but Hanzo is no fool. As children, Genji always fell to defense when desperate.   
  


He always had a weak spot.

  
“Just as when we were boys!”    
  
The shot fired nearly breaks Stormbow from the force Hanzo applies. His fingers are bleeding, McCree is bruising his arm with the strength of which he plies, his muscles ache and his breath is tight in his chest.   
  
The arrow misses Genji’s sword by a millimeter and drives deep into his chest.    
  
Elimination.   
  
Hanzo finally releases McCree in his haste to return to the point. The American man falls to the ground, winded and wheezing. Hanzo takes a rolling jump off the platform, lands hard on his back. The air is knocked out of him, but Hanzo grimaces through the pain and shifts onto his knees with the resulting momentum.    
  
The hum stops. Hanzo stands alone in the middle of point A. Alone, Hanzo takes it.    
  
The resounding silence from the elimination box speaks volumes. Athena calls into the empty practice ground: “Attack team wins. Play of the Practice: Agent Hanzo Shimada.” She obediently rolls the footage of Hanzo taking the point. From an outside view, Hanzo can safely say that he looks a man possessed. Anger contorts his face, and the way the string falls back to scrape his arm looks savage and painful.

 

Hanzo looks at his arm. There are indeed several large, shallow scratches that ooze blood. A mistake he hadn’t made since he was nineteen. Hanzo did not even feel the pain in the adrenaline.   
  
The snow and the wind leaves, the simulation ends and the grey hellscape of the training room is back, and there’s only Hanzo standing bruised and winded at point A. He tenderly feels his ribs as he raises his face to sky. Oh, yes. Those were definitely broken. Hanzo will not relish asking Zeigler to heal them.   
  
Awed, his team approaches from the elimination box. Zeigler sends him a glare and streaks a gold mark as she attends to McCree, who’s still on the patio. Hanzo struggles silently for breath, holding his cracked ribs, lamenting the moment he ever came to this cursed isle in search for a dead man. He has found what he was looking for, but, god, at what cost? In a facility with an organization that died. Surrounded by people that want him dead. Held captive by a man that is supposed to be dead. Life is once again his outlying weakness and Hanzo wishes he were dead.   
  
Hanzo spits out the bile rising in his throat. It hits the silver floor red. Immediately a golden ball Hanzo can’t identify comes to float above his shoulder, and suddenly he feels like he’s been given a very high dose of painkillers. Which only serve to loosen his tongue.

 

His anger is still wound tight in his chest.    
  
“Good god,” Winston finally says.

 

“Good god  _ indeed! _ ” Hanzo says. He rounds on McCree with the ferocity of a man wronged.

 

“ _ You! _ ”

 

“Me?” McCree echoes.    
  
Hanzo grabs his collar and hauls him close. There’s a sharp intake of breath from the surrounding crew. “ _ How dare you _ ,” Hanzo bellows.   
  
“How dare you speak to me that way! You--  _ you-- _ ,” Hanzo has to take a deep breath. He can hardly keep his mind straight from the reeling anger, and he nearly spits out something in Japanese. “How dare you! You are lucky I don’t disembowel you where you stand!’ Hanzo gives him a shake.

 

“Hold on,” Genji says. He begins to advance. 

 

“You keep your-- your  _ fucking _ tongue to yourself before I see fit to rip it out through your teeth, you gutless waste of flesh!” Hanzo’s hands are trembling. “You son of a whore! You speak of what you  _ know nothing of _ , say things you think  _ I don’t hear _ , you idiot American scum, the only reason you still walk the mortal plane is because I have a-- a  _ modicum of self control, _ to spare you of a deserving fate, though the world be better off without--,” Hanzo gives him another  _ rough  _ shake. McCree’s head snaps back and forth. He is too stunned to even say something in his defense. 

 

Genji reaches the two and physically hauls them apart. He has to use both hands and  _ pull _ to pry Hanzo off of McCree. “Hanzo, brother, come on, this is not you,” he begs.

 

“You useless piece of shit waste of space son of a whore--,” Hanzo screams, too frustrated to form a coherent sentence. Genji is pulling him by the arms. Hanzo streams forward again much to Genji’s displeasure.

 

Hanzo spits a bloody chunk on McCree’s chest. “ _ Rot in hell! _ ” He screeches. He shakes free of Genji’s grip and careens to the side, coughing hard. The strain was too much for his injured ribs. Genji approaches again, his hands held out in a reassuring manner. 

 

Hanzo turns to point at him. “ _ And you _ ,” he seethes, his voice raw. “ _ Do not ever come near me again. _ ”

 

Hanzo half storms, half stumbles out of the training room. Lucio calls after him, “Man, wait, c’mon, you look real messed up, let me look at you!”

 

“No! Hopefully I will pass in my sleep. Rather that than  _ suffer _ this company!”   
  
The door slams behind him.    
  
No one speaks.

 

“I call for his immediate removal from Overwatch, effective immediately,” Zeigler says in the resulting silence. Everyone turns to look at her.

 

She holds McCree’s shoulder comfortingly. She looks confused at everyone’s shock. “What? You saw that. He was  _ this close _ ,” Zeigler squeezes her fingers together. “To killing Jesse! He is a ticking time bomb, pardon the phrase.”

 

“We both know that is absurd,” Genji says. “Hanzo is not… usually prone to fits of rage. I severely doubt he would actually kill McCree in a fit of rage.”

 

Zeigler looks deadpan at him. “Is he.” She says dully.

 

Genji is still for a moment. “Yes, of course.” He assures. It takes him a minute. “Oh, you think he ‘killed’ me in a fit of rage. No, of course not.”

 

Angela raises her brows. 

 

“You think that Hanzo lost his temper and raised his sword to me? No. He is too disciplined. I arrived late, early in the morning, from a party and he was waiting for me. His face was so blank when he…,” Genji trails off and clears his throat.

 

“Anyway. No. If Hanzo truly wanted McCree dead, then he would be dead. In his defense, however, even I would be quite angry at the things McCree said. Your comm was on, by the way, McCree.”

 

McCree flushes with shame.

 

Eventually the two came to an agreement. Zeigler leaves the facility, as did everyone else, but Genji grabs McCree by the shoulder.

 

“My friend, a word?” He asks.

 

“Sure,” McCree replies, his throat unbelievably hoarse.

 

“I am not prone to meddling, but I believe there are things you should know,” Genji replies.

 

“Is that so?”

* * *

 

  
  
As soon as Hanzo stalks into his room, door slammed behind him, his stomach drops. _You child_ , he chided himself. _That was wholly inappropriate_. But his hands still shake with barely concealed anger, his chest twists and lurches inside of him (and that isn't the cracked ribs speaking). He has an urge to scream but doesn’t want to risk the attention, but he also wants to risk the attention. He does, he doesn’t, he does, he doesn’t. 

 

He should apologize. They should apologize.  _ He should apologize.  _   
  
But Hanzo can’t find it in him to apologize. That sort of shame is a different kind.   
  
Instead he paces the room, cursing himself, cursing Overwatch, but mostly cursing Genji. Genji, for trapping him here, Genji for coming back to life, Genji for making him feel this strange patterned rush of _ joy-defeat-joy-defeat-joy-defeat _ , Genji for not just killing Hanzo outright like he should’ve. 

 

Should’ve killed him where he stood. That would be far less complicated, and Hanzo wouldn’t be pacing his room feeling like pipe about to blow.    
  
In this particular round, Hanzo is pacing and thinking of being dead, and if it were to be preferable to die in battle (as his teammates obviously do not value his life) or die out of battle of an injury. He’s leaning towards in battle when three sharp knocks come at Hanzo’s door.   
  
Hanzo’s head whips up. No one ever knocks at his door. The last time someone did, it was his damned brother, and then he had to go to that awful practice.   
  
He’s hesitant. Maybe it’s Genji. He walks towards the door.   
  
Maybe he shouldn’t open it.  _ Maybe it’s Genji. _ He removes his hand.    
  
He’s about to ask Athena her opinion of his existential nightmare (mainly  _ who the hell is at his door)  _ when the knocks come again, this time in a fanned 6 knocks.    
  
Hanzo yanks open the door. “Yes?” He snaps irritably; he does not even look at who it is.   
  
“Howdy,” says none other than McCree.   
  
Hanzo attempts to close the door.    
  
McCree jams one of his boots into the door, and the door bounces off his polished italian leather. Hanzo opens the door wider so he can  _ force it closed _ , and McCree sidles in through the crack.    
  
“Howdy,” Says McCree, sheepishly.    
  
“You are not a smart man, if you are going to approach me after I  _ so clearly _ stated my intentions.”   
  
“Yeah, trust me, I heard that part loud ‘n clear. In fact, I’m here because I believe we need to do the  _ adult _ thing and talk about it.” Over his shoulder, Song scoots by with a juice packet in her mouth. She sips from it, hands-free, her eyes roaming over McCree and Hanzo parked at the door. Her eyebrows shoot up in amazement, and she empties the Capri-Sun in nearly one go.    
  
Hanzo slams the door.    
  
(She and Lucio can talk for hours. Do not even drag Mei into it.)   
  
“What do you want?” Hanzo growls through gritted teeth. 

  
McCree does not answer him but instead ventures in. He turns his head this way and that, taking in the drawers with their clothes neatly within (an effort Hanzo made last night in a fit of self-conscious frustration), the fresh laundry on the drawer top, electromagnetic components of Stormbow and the arrows picked apart on his desk. His messy bed (the soaked in sweat he can’t see), the ratty old waterlogged book on the bedside table. McCree plops himself on the bed and picks up the book.   
  
Hanzo taps his metal foot impatiently. The American did not even take off his shoes like a proper person! In an effort to restrain himself, Hanzo clenches and unclenches his hands at his sides.    
  
McCree thumbs through the book, stops at the dog-eared pages with their bloodstains and ink marks, skims the chapter long dissections that follow. “Mighty nice place you have here, Shimada,” he says. “Real neat. This book is kinda depressin’ though.”   
  
“I said,  _ what do you want _ , McCree.”   
  
McCree clears his throat and sets the book back where it belongs. “Er. About our feet. Foot. The foot we got off on,” McCree takes off his hat and pulls his prosthetic hand through his tangle of tawny hair. A bit gets stuck in a knuckle joint, and McCree yelps as he pulls it out.  “I think it was the wrong one.”   
  
He better not discard that hair in Hanzo’s room. “I do not understand this American talk.”   
  
“I mean. I think that… Man, I don’t even know how to simplify that phrase. I mean, er, I think that you and I started badly. We ain’t exactly on friendly terms, I mean, and I want to rectify that,” he pauses and puts his hands in his lap. Hanzo’s eyes dart up to McCree’s, and he’s suddenly struck by the dark brown depths. There’s no light in his eyes; the brown bleeds into black. It’s mesmerizing.   
  
“Rectify our relationship.” Hanzo ventures. He crosses his arms, feels his muscle and the tacky blood, eyes the bruise on McCree’s throat.   “After I had threatened to…  _ correct me if I am mistaken _ , tear your tongue out through your teeth and disembowel you.”   
  
“Yeah. You did indeed promise me those things,” Mcree replies, and he rubs the back of his neck. “And that ain’t ok, sure, by any means, but uh… I also believe I am due for an apology. Genji took me aside and kind of, told me about your upbringin’ an’ all, and I can see how my actions might have…  _ triggered _ ya.” 

 

Hanzo shudders. He does not get  _ triggered.  _ That is a term for people with  _ issues _ , or trauma, and Hanzo has none of those things. Hanzo is fine. Hanzo is  _ fine _ .

 

“An’ so I’m apologizin’ for that, but I didn’t know, but now I know so… won’t happen again. Oh! And I recognize I’m sorta pickin’ fights, which is a bad habit of mine, so I’ll stop that. Sorry. Sorry about this whole mess,” McCree’s words trails off at Hanzo’s resolute silence, his hardened glare, his clenched fist. He sighs in irritation and stands. “This ain’t workin’, can’t blame you, guess I was a fool hopin’ for a resolution. I’ll jus’ see myself out,” McCree moves towards the door.   
  
An apology.   
  
Hanzo has not heard one of those in ages. Perhaps the last genuine was… He discards the servants cowering out of his way, Genji’s slurred and high pleas, the empty words of ‘friends’. He cannot think of one. 

 

He thinks of one’s he has given, in turn, and comes up similarly empty.  
  
“My actions were likewise… Uncouth,” Hanzo manages. “I do not usually lose my temper in such a way. It has been a… taxing, few weeks to say the least. I apologize for my rudeness.” He dips into a lowered bow.  If he goes any farther he thinks he will die of shame. His father will rise from his grave, a ghostly apparition, and berate him on his lack of pride.  
  
McCree stops where he stands. He turns back to Hanzo, and his face is much… lighter. “So we’re at an understandin’, then?”  
  
“I suppose,” Hanzo says. “We are not on ‘friendly’ terms.”  
  
“‘Course, can’t expect that.”  
  
“Hardly allies or coworkers.”  
  
“Absolutely.”  
  
“Teammates. Acquaintances.”  
  
“Sounds good. So,” McCree motions to the book on the bedstand. “Y’like… Books?”  
  
“Poetry.” Hanzo awkwardly rubs the fresh wound on his arm, the large oval scrapes from his weapon. There is already a very thin patch of scabbing.   
  
“I see. Well, er.” The conversation is stalling. “I’ll get out of your hair.”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
“Er. See you at practice… Or dinner. Or somethin’. _Okaybye_.” McCree skirts out his door. It slams behind him.  
  
Hanzo collapses on the bed in the quietness, pulls his book towards him and holds it close to his chest. One less enemy, but not an ally either.  
  
Genji is still meddling in his business, it seems.   
  
The loyalty is unfounded; it leaves a bitter taste in Hanzo’s throat and a feeling not much unlike vertigo in his stomach. His brother, rendered bit by bit by his hand, showing him such affection. _Affection misplaced_. Hanzo doesn’t deserve it, it fills him with a bitter regret to see it manifest so readily, and once again Hanzo wishes he was home. He wishes he could retreat to the sakura petals, pink in the spring. He loved those trees, spent hours among them.  
  
He loved them so much, the first three months after Genji’s death that is where he first turned his blade inward. Honorably, as his father would have wanted. Honorably, as he could excuse it. Honorably, as he didn’t deserve.

 

( _ “Weak,”  _ she says.  _ “This bid for… attention? What is your excuse? Do you not have everything-- money, power, women… drugs, if you wish it? Why?” _

 

“ _ I… I miss him. I was wrong.” _

 

_ “Pathetic. He was a stain upon your name. He was bad. Why miss him? Why go to this weakness?”) _

  
  
Hanzo idly puts his book to the side. He is remarkably empty; his chest does not soar or beat and his head does not rush. He detachedly remembers the blood, the short blade, the second slice. What comes after is more blurry; he remembers faces of aunts and uncles, their disappointed looks, the silence in his room except for the tiny beeping of the medical machines.   
  
He remembers their shame. Their heads, devilish, spitting harsh words about Hanzo’s character. Comparisons. His father; his brother; his mother.  _ Oni.  _   
  
Hanzo is on autopilot. Time loses meaning as he just lays there in bed. He does not bother to undress or cover himself in the thin blanket, take off his prosthetics, untie his hair. He lays. He thinks.   
  
He is nothing.   
  
At some point he falls asleep, and he dreams. Upon waking when the sun has not yet risen, Hanzo cannot even remember what the nightmare was about aside from the sense of foreboding anxiety in his gut.   



	5. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo retreats further into himself after his embarrassing outburst at practice. Then he big brother's himself a friend.

 

> “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day--" William Shakespeare,  _Macbeth_
> 
> * * *
> 
>  

 

Weeks pass.

 

They compile into lonely months. Long, lonely months where Hanzo keeps his head down and his mouth shut. There are more practices, but communication with the team is minimal. “Hanzo, shoot them!” He does. “Hanzo, cover me!” He will. Zeigler heals him, but it’s cold and professional with none of the fussing. McCree occasionally hounds him, but it’s purely tactics and he is easily dissuaded. No more climbing up stairs and vaulting down heights. No more Play of the Practice. No more fighting or threats or curses.

 

Hanzo does not talk.

 

Hanzo can never quite get over his shame. The fact that the entirety of the base saw him so _unwound_ , so raw and true strikes him wrong. So he avoids them, if he can. The ribs heal by themselves. The welts on his arm fade away into silvery scars.

 

Hanzo pours over the book. He commits poems he even is not fond of to memory. When he is tired of that, he cleans. Obsessively. _A neat room is a neat mind._ He uses the bleach and the lye like the room has not been cleaned in centuries. Often his room is still clean from the last thorough scrubbing, but if Hanzo doesn’t do something with the manic energy in his chest he will explode. So he cleans, and scrubs, and sometimes when the base is quiet he will even clean the kitchen and the living room. These bouts of cleanness are punctuated by Hanzo’s own bouts of extreme mess; sometimes he lays down on his bed and when he finally is self aware again, his clothes are strewn all over the place and there’s mud on the floor. On one memorable occasion his desk is tipped over.

 

So he cleans again.

 

The cuts and calluses on his hand irritate, redden, flake. The way his skin fractures into dry, painful scars and breaks does not go unnoticed by Hanzo. Clenching his fist is painful, but Hanzo routinely flexes his hands. He feels real. The pain is real, deserved, grounding. Detached, he thinks about it. The nerve endings in his hand transmit brain, where it goes halfway up the spinal cord and splits into two transmissions in order to reach the brain faster. A threat. Cease; resist, desist. Instinctually, Hanzo is to stop.

 

Hanzo does not stop.

 

In fact, he aggravates it. He picks at the healing scabs, he pulls the dry skin off until his skin is tender and raw. His hands are a mess. Even the hands covered by his kyudo gloves are raw and bitten. Every practice, his hands drip blood and ache and sting from the metallic string of Stormbow. It hurts. Oh god, does it hurt.

 

Yet at the end of every practice, when Angela is routinely checking for wounds, Hanzo hides his hands. The inside of his kyudo-ji is stained with rusty blood. It is a pain to scrub out.

 

     Yet with his many habits and routines, Hanzo has a hard time passing time. He is a patient man but a book can only be read so much, a man sleep only so often, and meditation is done best in moderation. Only Genji and Song occasionally try to interrupt his solitude. He is loathe to admit it, but he likes it. He likes it when they come out of their way just to talk to him, even if he is unapproachable and rude. He feels wanted, and real, and like a human. He and Genji often end up arguing, or in an awkward silence, but it’s still appreciated. Song, for the most part, just checks in and offers the occasional invitation to an activity. Movie Night, Game Night, Food Night, would you like me to do your hair Shimada it looks like it needs a cut…

 

It’s overwhelming. It’s appreciated.

 

It’s late at night. So late, in fact, that it is early in the morning. There is no moon, no stars, no light aside from the dim lamp on Hanzo’s desk. Hanzo had made the mistake of taking a ridiculously long nap (more like a _sixteen hour sleep_ ) and he’s stuck stalling in his room for day to come. It’s boring. It’s lonely. Hanzo considers stealing medication from Zeigler to knock him out again.

 

In fact, he was up just to do that when he smelt something vaguely familiar from the way of the kitchen. It wasn’t the leftover smell of dinner (which was some sort of protein disaster from Reinhardt), but something spicy and oriental and somewhat like home. _Almost_ like home.

 

Curious, Hanzo followed his nose.

 

     It leads him to the kitchen. The recessed lights are on in the kitchen itself, but the lights to the rest of the dining area are off. Song stands alone at the stove, humming tunelessly to herself as she tends to a pot on the stove. There’s a plastic bowl off to the side filled with cabbage. She looks a mess. She usually is well put together and energetic, succinct and talkative. Instead she glances over her shoulder to look at Hanzo, notes his presence, and turns back to the stove.

 

“Song?” Hanzo asks.

 

Song turns around to look at him. She smiles brightly, too brightly, and says, “Oh, hey! I hope I didn’t wake you.”

 

Hanzo cautiously wandered into the kitchen. “No, you did not wake me. I was awake.”

 

Song nods and turns back to the stove. “Cool,” she says demurely. “So was I.” And she says nothing more.

 

Hanzo ventures closer to investigate. The substance in the pot is a light brown mixture that Song continually stirs. The cabbage is soaking in salt water that stings his hand’s just looking at it.  There is a series of other ingredients sat out on the counter as well.

 

“What are you doing?” Hanzo asks, motioning to all of the foodstuff around the kitchen.

 

Song makes a dismissive sort of noise and shrugs. “Sorta homesick and hungry. So I decided to make kimchi, just the way my dad used to.” Song motions to the cabbage and the mixture in explanation.

 

“Ah. I see,” Hanzo replies.

 

Song stops for a moment, starts to say something, and stops again. “Would you like to help? Kimchi isn’t something to eat by yourself,” Song asks. She turns back to Hanzo, eyes full of expectation and something else he can’t quite pin.

 

How is Hanzo to say no to that?

 

“I do not see why not. What do you want me to do?”  Hanzo moves to wash his hands in the sink. The soap stings and irritates his hand, but he is not a savage.

 

“Can you flip the cabbage and start measuring out the stuff for the porridge?” Song asks. “I have to keep my eye on this.” Hanzo obeys. It does indeed sting when he flips the cabbage, but he ignores it. With the occasional quiet question about ratios, he measures and sets aside the ingredients for the porridge. He then picks up a knife and cuts the other ingredients with practiced efficiency.

 

They cook in silence. Hanzo does what Song occasionally asks him, cleans dishes they are done using, and keeps a close eye on the napa cabbage. Song is unusually quiet and introspective, with a singular focus on the stove. Hanzo eyes her out of his peripheral. Sometimes she moves too jerkily, too quickly, like she was filled with tension.

 

She looks tired, which is unusual in itself. She usually is well rested and put together, loathe to do anything but present her best to the world. She is early to rise. She sticks to a strict schedule. She balances her duties as an ambassador, international gamer, streamer, celebrity, actress and Overwatch agent perfectly. She is the picture of a successful soldier. But instead her hair is messily (and not in the stylish way) tied away from her face. Makeup is smeared on her face, as if she had attempted to take it off but couldn’t quite get the job done. Her eyes are bloodshot and sunken, the skin swallow.

 

Hanzo continues to observe her out of the corner of her eye. He can’t help but to feel the rising tide of concern, even though he chides himself for it. Who is he to worry?

 

_She can take care of herself. She is hardly a child! Who are you to worry, to fuss? You are not her brother._

 

Hanzo snorts at himself. As if being someone’s brother ever helped them any.

 

Kimchi takes a long time to make. Hours pass companionably until finally, Song lets out a close-mouthed scream and slams the wooden spoon on the counter. Hanzo jumps in surprise.

 

“Hey, can I like, talk to you real fast? Like I know that you probably don’t care or whatever, but if I don’t get this off my chest I might _literally_ explode,” Song says in a rush. Her hands rake through the sides of her head, mussing her hair and giving her a feverish look.

 

Hanzo doesn’t say anything, stunned. Song takes it as a go ahead.

 

“I miss my home.” Song says quietly. She turns back to stove. “I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss just gaming without worrying about _legality_ or like, dying in a Talon raid or whatever. But then it’s like, what’s the point? My homeland is a mess from the omnics and if I was home I’d be in my MEKA training to finally kill that stupid omnic in the sea or dying in the process.  I’d be in the army again. I’d be filming movies and doing whatever they told me to do.” Song lets out an anguished sigh and stirs her mixture.

 

“I’m just.” Song stalls. “Just. _Ugh!_ ” With a sudden whirl, Song turns and chucks her spoon at the fridge. Hanzo swerves out of the way as the spoon flies past his face. It hits the fridge and bounces off into the dark hallway.

 

“ _I want to go home!_ ” Song screeches in dismay. “I want to go home! All this _duty_ and _army_ and _ambassador_ and _girl genius_ stuff is going to kill me and no one cares! No one cares what I want anymore and I-- and I-- I just want to go home! I just want to see my dad again,” Song lets out a sniffle and wipes at her eyes. No tears fall down her face.

 

“I miss my dad,” She whispers brokenly. “I miss my home. I miss… I miss when things weren’t so complicated.” She lets out a heaving sigh and hangs her head, whimpering and gasping over the pot of rice flour and brown sugar. “I’m tired of omnics and terrorism and war and _death_ ,” he mumbles, more to herself than him. Hanzo furrows his brows.

 

He starts to head towards her, but hesitates. Starts again.

 

 _I can hardly leave her like this_.

 

Hanzo quietly picks up the spoon off the ground and rinses it in the sink. He silently approaches Song from behind and gently sets the spoon on the stove next to the pot.

 

“Song,” he says gently, quietly. Song doesn’t look up. “Song, look at me.” She obeys. Her eyes are red and bloodshot, bright and watery. She sniffs in response.

 

Hanzo raises a hand to rest it on her back, but hesitates. Lowers it.

 

“I understand,” Hanzo says. “Duty… Responsibility… It rarely aligns with what you want. To have a duty or responsibility is to set yourself aside and do what must be done.”

 

Hanzo pauses.

 

“And it is unpleasant. This, I know more than anything.”

 

_( “It is my duty, and my burden.”)_

 

Song looks up at him, really looks at him. Her watery eyes search his swallow, serious face. Hanzo looks back at her. She is so young. Her cheeks still have a hint of baby fat that hasn’t hollowed away, but the dark circles under her eyes are apparent, as is the stressed lines on her forehead. _She is so young_.

 

He was young once. He always did what must be done, at any cost, to anyone, and no one had given him another option. There was no option. The idea that there was _anything else_ was absurd.

 

He wants her to have an option. He does not want her to end up chained in a room to a duty he had thought dead, tied to a book and an existence she hated.

 

No. Not for her. There was time for her yet.

 

“But your duty… Any duty…. You must _choose_ it. There is no point in wasting away living by the will of others,” Hanzo's hand goes back up to lay on her back. He turns her around to face him, his voice taking on a stern edge. “Do you understand? Your life is your own. Do with it what you _want_ , and do not live to regret it.”

 

With his heart jumping in his throat, he looked her meaningfully in the eyes and reached down to grasp the bottom of his tank top. He raised it to show her a singular long scar, stretching from hip to hip. It was smooth and straight, the result of years with a blade, and old.

 

Song’s eyes traced the scar, and she did not look away. Her eyes widened and her brows lowered.

 

“Duty is what you choose, not what you are given.” Hanzo finishes. He drops the tank top as quickly as he had lifted it and spoke no more of it. “What are you saying is understandable. These are scary times, and even I wish for the simplicity of home. But if you really _want_ to go home, Song? Go home. Do not age yourself over this.”

 

Song’s eyes darted back up to Hanzo’s stern face. Her eyes bored into his, searching, searching for something. If she found it, he doesn’t know. She darted forward too quickly to wrap her arms around his chest and squeeze. Her cheek sat in the middle of his chest.

 

“I don’t want to go home, I want to fight for my home and my father and my people, and I hate Talon and I hate these stupid--- stupid Omnics, but I just wish it wasn’t so hard!” She whines into his chest. Hanzo hummed in understanding. Song rambles a bit more, a lot about _duty_ and _danger_ and _home_ and mostly about her dad, but she quickly grows inconsolable and illegible, then words taper off into words. Hanzo coughed awkwardly, but wrapped his arms around her small shoulders as well. He gave her a couple of companionable pats. His top is quickly wettened by her tears, but there was no reason to stop her.

 

She was still young.

 

When she finally stops, she lets in three huge sniffs. “Thank you,” She whispers against his tank top.

 

“You are welcome, Song,” he reassured. Song let out a harsh laugh.

 

“You are very big brother-y, you know that? Like the kind they put in all the manhwas!” She claims, punctuated by a wet laugh.

 

Hanzo heart clenched painfully. _Once, he was_. “I used to hear that a lot,” Hanzo said dully.

 

“You should still hear it, I think.”

 

Hanzo didn’t know what to say to that.

 

“Hanzo. By the way? Call me Hana.”

 

Hana and Hanzo stayed together cooking until the morning light. By the time the kimchi was finished, the rest of the base was beginning to stir. Hanzo and Hana shared a small serving each, left a sticky note that said: ‘ _For the team-- H+H’_ and went to bed.

 

When they woke up at 2 pm, all the kimchi was gone. The sticky note had ‘ _Thanks!! --The Team’_

* * *

 

     Hana begins to spend more time with him after that, and he doesn’t even want to complain. She doesn’t ask for much. She doesn’t pry, she doesn’t talk, she doesn’t question. She just shows up at his door with an offer, and often he doesn’t want to refuse it. He feels like he must, but he doesn’t. He hardly deserves her company; so understanding, so friendly, so sincere. But still he can’t tell her no.

 

“Do you want to play this game with me?”

 

“Can you help me with this puzzle?”

 

“Do you think this is cute?”

 

“Can we talk? I’m lonely.”

 

“Do you mind if I hang out in here?”

 

“Hey, my dad sent me this cool movie, want to watch?”

 

It’s almost like Hanzo is with Genji again, but Hana is not Genji. She doesn’t go out on weekends. She doesn’t have a stash of amphetamines in her drawer or a bong on her desk or alcohol in her closet. She’s just young, and she talks, and she laughs and smiles like he used to do. They waste hours. She asks his opinion of silly things.

 

“Can you handle spice?” She says from his desk, where she has set up her laptop and is editing a video.

 

“Do I look like an European?” He says, and he turns another page.

 

Sometimes he even features on her streams. His face, as requested, is cut out, but he picks up a controller with her and plays all the games she wants him too. _Starcraft_ , mostly, but also several different multiplayer RPG games and shooter-types. _A lot_ of shooters.

 

“You actually have really good aim,” she admits begrudgingly during a stream.

 

“Why would you assume any less?” Hanzo demands. His voice is sore from drinking and talking the previous night. In the corner of his eye, Hanzo can see the chat blow up. A lot of them say things about his accent. About his arms. About his _chest._

 

Flushed, Hanzo clears his throat. Hana tells her mod to start silencing the especially explicit ones.

 

    In the weeks of practice, they become _close_ , which is so strange and unfamiliar that Hanzo avoids Hana for three days just to sort it out. She, of course, eventually chases him out and then calls him out (with a startling amount of accuracy).

 

_It is dangerous to be close to anyone, where I am from. It was a weakness._

 

_Close to? Hanzo, you can’t mean--_

 

 _What?_ **_No_ ** _, you are a child. I mean that… friends. If you were honest, if you grew close… So easily they could take it from you. How far you would go for their safety._

 

_Hanzo… Is this you literally admitting to me you’ve never had a friend before?_

 

 _No! What an absurd notion! Of course I’ve had-- had_ **_friends_ ** _!_

 

 _Lmao_ (she very literally pronounces L M A O) _ok, so to make it easier on you, just think of me like your… little sister, or something. As long as you don’t get weird about it._

 

_I cannot._

 

_You don’t have to say it. Just think it, maybe it will help._

 

Unfortunately, it did help in some respects. Suddenly he understood what ‘normal’ friendships were like. No pressure of discovery or the looking over shoulders. Insecurities shared without fearing it coming back to bite.

 

But it hurt more than it helped.

 

It wasn’t right. Genji deserved better ( _he cannot be replaced)._ Hana deserved better ( _she was not a replacement)._ He didn’t deserve a second chance ( _he ruined the only one he had_ ). He did not tell Hana this. He doesn’t want to get “weird” about it, so he doesn’t. He doesn’t mention it. He doesn’t think it. He tucks it away, folded under the secrets he holds tight to his chest, and hope that no one pulls up his past to find it.

 

But he knows it is there, and that is enough.

 

He can no longer even _look_ at Genji without a rush of shame, of vitriol. _What are you thinking?_ He screams inside his head every time they meet, and he thinks of that quiet conservation in the hallway back from practice. _I don’t know._

 

Genji tilts his head up in a curious, challenging way when Hanzo avoids his eyes again.

 

 _What are you thinking_?

 

Genji asks to talk after practice one week. Hanzo does not reply. He walks past Genji with Hana as he waits by the door for him; Hanzo’s face is fire and he looks very closely at his prosthetics.

 

_What are you thinking?_

 

When Genji takes off his mask to eat sometimes, Hanzo catches him staring. He looks curious. He looks suspicious. He looks hurt.

 

_What are you thinking?_

 

     Hana is taking up the entirety of his bed and shit talking his clothes. Hanzo is very patiently taking it with grace. Genji used to do the same thing. He’s cross legged on the desk, back against the window, tea cup to his lips. “Like, listen, pride for your culture, _represent_ , I get it, okay, I have like a _million_ hanboks in my closet. But you really have nothing else?”

 

Hanzo took a sip of his tea. “I have one pair of  sweatpants, one pair of jeans, and a tanktop.”

 

“ _Incredible_. That can’t be realistic. There’s kind of reason that military wear is usually tight fitting trousers and stuff.”

 

“White supremacy, colonialism, and routine sabotage of any asian country attempt to militarize modernly during the Industrial Revolution?” Hanzo retorted quietly. Hana looked at him. Hanzo looked at her. He took a sip of his tea.

 

“You _know_ you’re right, but this is totally not what this is about, grandpa. Don’t try to corner me with history facts.”

 

“Watch me,” Hanzo mutters into his rim. Hana opens her mouth to say something particularly snappy (the crunch of her brow, the finger pointed at him), when there’s two strong knocks at his door. Her mouth clicks shut, and she looks at the door.

 

Hanzo’s eyebrows raise. He looks at the door.

 

Hana makes an exaggerated motion of counting her and Hanzo before looking at the door. Hanzo sneers, _haha, very funny_ and slides off the desk to open it.

 

It is Genji.

 

     Hanzo turns back to look at Hana, panicked, but she has that devious gleam in her eye that mean’s she’s going to do something that Hanzo will not like. Which is usual, and Hanzo can try to protest, but she can’t be stopped. So instead of saying something relevant that will somehow save her, she looks at a watch she doesn’t have and says, “Wow, I have a stream scheduled in like _right now._ Sorry pops, looks like I gotta blast.” She leaves the bright pink D.VA t-shirt she dropped by to give him on the bed.

 

“Genji,” She says politely as she squeezes past him. She inclines her head, Genji inclines his head, it’s all very polite.

 

“Genji,” Hanzo says not very politely. “What do you want.”

 

Genji welcomes _himself_ into the room and closes the door behind him. That is only slightly ominous. Hanzo would be expecting death if Genji wasn’t casually dressed in a crop top and simple jeans.

 

“Let’s talk,” he says in a tone that does not match with the idea of _talking_.

 

     Hanzo slid out of the way and to the bed. He picked up Hana’s gift and held it to himself; it looked like it would fit fine. Hanzo probably wouldn’t wear it though. Probably. He folded it with quick, efficient movements and turned to store it in his near empty drawers. “Talk, then,” Hanzo declared.

 

“I have noticed you are spending more time with little Miss Song,” Genji starts. He crosses his arms and leans against the wall.

 

“What does that matter to you?” Hanzo retorts.

 

Genji stopped, considered. His mask could not be interpreted, and for all Hanzo knew, Genji was staring. “I understand that she is nineteen,” he begins, “and an adult, legally. But she is still little more than a child,” he lets out a deep sigh and wrings his hands. Why is he nervous? “She is impressionable, and half of your age. Very literally half of your age, she could be your child.” Hanzo snorts.

 

“Are you implying I am a bad influence?” Hanzo snaps. _Is he a bad influence?_ “Will I persuade her into murdering her brother and abandoning her clan next, after I coerce her into getting a tattoo sleeve?” When he spoke to her about duties she wanted, he wasn’t _telling_ her to abandon her country. He wasn’t trying too, at least. Perhaps he was misconstrued. Perhaps she will desert the army.

 

_Please do not do that._

 

“A bad influence?” Genji’s voice rose in incredulity. “Well-- I can hardly approve of you dating a child!”

 

Hanzo’s mouth dropped open. He could hardly stop from stumbling back. Genji said nothing. Hanzo said nothing.

 

“What.” Hanzo said.

 

“What.” Genji said.

 

“You assume that I am romantically involved with Hana.” Hanzo whispered, more to himself than to Genji, and like a wave cresting the island he felt the rage bubbling. As the seconds tick past, the tide only grows higher and higher and higher.

 

“Now, hold on,” Genji starts, his hands up to placate him. But Hanzo has nothing to say, he’s trembling starting from the chest. Already he feels exhausted for the day and he is not even done with Genji.

 

“I will not,” Hanzo yells. He mostly skips past the raised voice, the rude words. His vocal cords strain. “If you think me to be that sort of individual, why are you here? Why am I here?”

 

“What?” Genji says faintly, his voice tiny and frail. He tucks his hands to his chest, some sort of repentance, but it’s too late. What was said has been said and there is no taking it back.

 _No taking it back,_ Hanzo’s saying to himself, words falling out of his mouth before he can even grab them with both hands.

 

     What he does grab with both hands? Genji’s collar; and it’s a bitter, dry shot of nostalgia as he hauls Genji dangerously close to his face. His eyes search for something, anything, of his brother but all he can see is his own brown eyes reflected hazel in Genji’s display. His trimmed (Hana) goatee in his silver reflection. He’s imagined his reflection in this helmet so much it’s like a memory.

 

He’s tired of memories.

 

Hanzo’s growls and reaches forward, forefinger and thumb finding the latch on Genjis’ helmet that he knows is there. He’s been watching, watching as the face grows less and less recognizable with each day. It hardly needs any forcing. The panel falls off like it is oiled, and Hanzo tosses it to the side.

 

It hits the wall. Leaves a scratch.

 

“ _Why did you drag me here, if you truly believe I am beyond saving?_ ” Hanzo demands, voice raw and honest. It hurts, it hurts to say this (he hasn’t said what he’s been thinking in years, it’s not familiar). “Why did you find me?”

 

Genji’s eyes are the same color he remembers. The scars are little but blurred background.

 

“Why did you send me here?”

 

His eyelashes are as thick as ever. Hanzo used to be so jealous of them but never said anything; he later learned that Genji used mascara so regularly that he got a membership card at their makeup store.

 

“Why did you trap me here?”

 

Genji’s eyes are so expressive, he has never grown out of it. There’s fear, confusion, but mostly all his eyes show him is himself. He’s shocked to see tears in his eyes.

 

“Why didn’t you just _fucking kill me_ ?” Hanzo demands. Genji doesn’t answer him, but just passively sits in his grip. Hanzo shakes him once, firmly. “Why won’t you just _kill me_?”

 

“I,” Genji starts. “I don’t want you to die.” His weak is small, mostly air and fear without any confidence.

 

All the fight just falls out of Hanzo. His hands release his lapel and fall limply falls to grip Genji’s forearms. “Why?” And his voice breaks in delicate pieces and leaves the room silent, like a plate of china thrown at the wall.

 

“You’re my brother.” Genji slowly goes, relaxing from his tensed up position. He gently lays his hands on Hanzo’s own forearm. “You’re my brother, and I love you.”

 

 

> _Love._
> 
>  
> 
> When had such things had relevance, power, worth?
> 
>  
> 
> Hanzo had loved his brother like he loved his home. It was inequitable, the sort of thing that you would stay up late writing similes and poems for. It is best demonstrated, and demonstrated Hanzo tried.
> 
>  
> 
> Twelve; when the arm of the Omnic Land Forces stormed Hanamura after the longest continuous air raid in known history and killed his mother, Hanzo held his brother and did not cry. Weakness would get them killed.
> 
>  
> 
> Fifteen; when in Nara and his brother had arrogantly taunted a buck in his prime, it was Hanzo who took the horns to the gut. The scars are still angry, in motion, on his left side. Just under the rib.
> 
>  
> 
> Seventeen; When Genji suffered his first true heartbreak of his life it was Hanzo who sat up with him through the night and snuck the good sake out of the kitchen. It was Hanzo who got in trouble for sneaking out the good sake.
> 
>  
> 
> Eighteen; Hanzo bought Genji his green hair dye.
> 
>  
> 
> Nineteen; Hanzo broke his nose wrestling a drunk Genji out of the hands of the two men pulling Genji into their car. The police very nearly get involved. The nose never sits right again.
> 
>  
> 
> Twenty; Hanzo sits stock still by Genji at the bar. While Genji is looking away, Hanzo nonchalantly switches out his tequila with water and goes back to his book.
> 
>  
> 
> Twenty-one; He began to cover for Genji’s disappearance on the nightly.
> 
>  
> 
> Twenty-two; It is Hanzo who pulls Genji out of the bath and into his bed. He disposes of the needles in the bathroom. No one will know.
> 
>  
> 
> Twenty-three; Hanzo purges Genji’s room of all he can find. No one will know.
> 
>  
> 
> Twenty-four; His father knows. Genji is sent to rehab and is not allowed a phone. It is Hanzo who writes him weekly letters.
> 
>  
> 
> Twenty-five; Hanzo’s are still slick and warm with his father’s blood when he is dialing Genji. Press one. Call. “Yo, I told you that I was comin’ bro, give me time!” Hanzo worms his father over his shoulder. He holds the phone to his breast with his chin. “Father is dead,” He says.
> 
>  
> 
> “What?” Genji says.
> 
>  
> 
> Hanzo kicks open the exit door to the long, long flight of stairs. He takes them two at a time and nearly slips on his father's blood.
> 
>  
> 
> “Father is dead,” Hanzo says again, and only then he allows himself to sob as he makes quick pace down twenty flights of stairs. “You need to go. Hide. Disappear; we don’t know where or
> 
> _who_ or why. Agent K is out; stay _away_ from her men.”
> 
>  
> 
> “Fuck, I’m-- I got it, I’m getting. Who can we trust?”
> 
>  
> 
> “No one. Rendezvous at home.”
> 
>  
> 
> “Are you okay?”
> 
>  
> 
> “No. Go.” Hanzo hangs up. With one kick of his heel, he stomps down on his phone. It shatters more and more with each and every kick. Hanzo adjusts his father’s body into a fireman's carry.
> 
>  
> 
> He runs.
> 
>  
> 
> There was little Hanzo wouldn’t’ve done for his brother, and that was witnessed again and again. And yet, when his family came forward and asked of him the impossible, he did what he _had_ to. For his father’s memory. For his brother. For their honor.
> 
>  
> 
> For his family.
> 
>  
> 
> He loved them too.
> 
>  

“Do not say that,” Hanzo begged him. “Do not ask that of me again.” Genji’s eyebrows formed a solid, curious line on his brow. They were dark, and what he could see of Genji’s hair was dark. He hadn’t re dyed it green.

 

“Ask _what_ of you?” Genji parroted. “Hanzo, I am asking nothing of you.”

 

“But you are. You are. I cannot be your brother again,” Hanzo squeezes Genji’s arms as tight as he can. “You are not the Genji I once knew. He is dead, and I have killed him.” Dead on the deck. Hanzo left for someone else to tend to the body.

 

Hanzo’s hands slipped off Genji’s arms to hang weakly by his side. “I cannot do that to myself again.” _I cannot trust myself with a brother again_.

 

Genji can only rise from the ashes once.

 

Genji’s eyes search his face, flickering all over for some sort of sign of something. His eyebrows do not move. “You are not the Hanzo I once knew, then,” Genji says finally.

 

Hanzo shies away. He has not changed. He is still who he was when he killed his brother, and that would never change. He would not redeem himself, despite his claims. He could only live in penance for it for his days.

 

“My brother is dead. He died when he killed me,” Genji continues without a care. “But that is fine. That life killed both of us, and if it hadn’t, we would have died a slow death regardless. That was no life; it was an existence.”

 

Hanzo turns to look at his brother for the first time. Really look at him. There was the beginning of wrinkles in the corner of his eyes from smiling and a faint, but distinct laugh line running down one side of his mouth. He was too young for such lines.

 

“It was our home. That was our family,” Hanzo mumbles. His voice and heart are too weak to do much more.

 

“It was what we had. We had no choice being their family, or living there, or who our parents were. That has no real weight on _who_ we are, Hanzo.” Genji inches forward at Hanzo’s steady retreat. “If I could choose again, if I had some deity on my side and I could do it all over, I would not pick the Shimada clan again. But I’d pick you, Hanzo.”

 

Genji hesitates first, but when Hanzo makes no move to resist him, he wraps his arms around his older brother and leans his head against Hanzo’s own. “The Hanzo I knew is dead, but I really want to know the new one.”

 

Hanzo has never been ones. Neither has Genji. Their family, and country, were not particularly even a hugging kind. Public affection was frowned upon (and part of the reason that Genji’s open dating of nearly _everyone_ was frowned upon). But this was not public. It was private.

 

The door was closed, Hana was gone, and it was Hanzo, Genji and the elephant in the room. So Hanzo gave in.

He hugged his brother for the first time in a long, long time. And it felt alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's a bit shorter than usual, probably about 1k or 500 words, but it's done and its great! this was so emotionally charged guys, i caught myself having to take breaks because of it...also, i have to write a note now on three things that have bothered me a lot writing this chapter.
> 
> 1) you know that all of this was new?? like literally everything from hanzo wandering into the kitchen to the end was new. i wrote it all yesterday; i felt that hanzo has been lonely for too long and for future events to make sense hanzo needs some hana in his life!
> 
> 2) hana and hanzo are not dating. there's nothing inherently romantic about it. there's no way in hell that they will EVER be romantically involved. hanzo is literally old enough to be her father. hana just needs an adult who understands her ties to her country, the army, her job and her home and how this may go against what she really wants. hanzo understands this better than anyone else. 
> 
> 3) i will not repeat this again. the scene between genji and hanzo is very emotionally charged, but it's not romantic. shimadacest is wrong and disgusting. there's hugging and crying but it is NOT romantic--- if y'all say siblings have never done that you have never had feelings. i nearly erased that whole scene despite the fact that hanzo needed that badly because of how worried i was about anyone interpreting it wrong. 
> 
> thanks! lots of love for anyone who is reading. I even managed to upload it before 9 pm today!!
> 
> (p.s. that scar from hip to hip... well. let's just say that hanzo considers himself somewhat of a traditional guy)


	6. Indifferent to the affairs of men, time runs out, precise, heedless, exact, and immutable in rhythm.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo grows closer to Hana and Genji. But he learns that these brief moments of happiness are not to be. He cannot escape his past, no matter how far he runs.

>  
> 
> **Indifferent to the affairs of men, time runs out, precise, heedless, exact, and immutable in rhythm.**
> 
> **Erwin Sylvanus**
> 
> * * *
> 
>  

Life by nature is neither gentle nor kind. The rare moments of delicacy are swept away in a rapid of action and suffering, and that is just how life is. To be human is to weather it. And so the gentle moments with Hana fill his days, the budding relationship with his brother grows, and these are what is gentle and kind. It, like all things, dies on an insignificant day.

 

It is morning. The sun is bright and weak, and it grows weaker the closer they pass to winter. It is nearly the December now but Gibraltar barely feels the difference. The sun goes from roasting to gently basting the inhabitants of the Mediterranean. Truthfully, the difference is nigh unnoticeable to Hanzo.

 

If he were in Hanamura, there would be snow. But he is not home.

 

Hanzo walks through breezy, gray-lit halls on a Wednesday to practice. Hana had left earlier and Genji was otherwise occupied. That is fine. The two are good company (Genji less so) but Hanzo needs his own thoughts as well.

 

When he enters, the board that usually holds the objective of the day was blank. Instead of all the agents milling around, polishing their weapons or checking their gear, they all stand sort of awkwardly and uselessly around. Winston is assessing a clipboard, glancing over his glasses at the reclaimed Overwatch, and the looking back down as if some how rating the members. Upon Hanzo’s entrance and then his subsequence joining with the crowd, Winston clears his throat.

 

“Alright guys,” He says. Everyone silences and looks at him. He does not flourish under the attention and clears his throat awkwardly. Hanzo scoffs.  _ Inexperienced _ . “I’ve been going over stats, and it seems like some of us are vulnerable at short range.”

 

Hanzo did not like the sound of that.

 

“Hanzo, you have the lowest number of melee eliminations.”

 

Hanzo  _ does not _ like the sound of that. 

 

“Hana, you are next. Out of your mech, obviously, I wouldn’t want to run up to your MEKA close-range,” Winston mumbles. He trails off. 

 

“And so, we’re going to be practicing today!” Hana turns from the corner she was lounging in to shoot an incredulous look at him. She is just in shorts and tank, which looks out of place when in the practice room. 

 

Winston continues to name off pairs. Hanzo pays attention the pairings with a flash of disinterest, mentally checking off names. “Reinhardt, Torbjorn,” People pair up, and with terror Hanzo realizes that neither Genji or himself has been singled out yet. 

 

That is a development Hanzo is not sure he is ready for.

 

“And then the Shimada brothers. You are probably used to fighting each other,” Winston says thoughtlessly. He pauses at the end of his sentence, digests it, and whips his head up to look at the unimpressed Hanzo Shimada and Genji Shimada. 

 

“Wait, I didn’t mean--,” He begins. Hanzo holds up his hand.  “Stop while you are ahead, Doctor Winston.” Winston purses his lips and wisely wanders off. He will spectate, as he cannot in any moral conscience go fist to fist with a human.

 

With a sigh, Hanzo slumps his shoulders. Such things are unavoidable, he supposes, and he really has no say in what he does. Was he to approach the gorilla and say  _ See, I killed my brother with my own hands and I am unsure if I can face him knowingly again, may I sit this one out? _

 

Ridiculous. 

 

With another tortured sigh, Hanzo begins to walk towards Genji who converses in low undertones to McCree. The two glance at him when he approaches. 

 

Hanzo.  unties his waist tie with little difficulty, wraps that several times around his wrist and ties it tight with his teeth. Still the strands hit Hanzo’s thigh. He opens his to bare his entire chest. McCree stops mid-word and leaves his mouth open to gape, for some reason. Hanzo rolls his eyes at McCree’s poorly hid teasing and lets the kyudo-gi drop, where it hangs precariously over his butt while still remaining tucked into his hakama.

 

Hana wolf whistles. 

 

_ Thank you for that _ .

 

“It would be quite awful if your top did rip,” Genji says understandingly when Hanzo stops before them. “I saw your closet before. Real silk from Hanamura.”

 

“Stolen right out our own home,” Hanzo answers gravely.

 

“Why wear it to battle, if so delicate then?” McCree cuts in, voice deep and husky for a reason Hanzo can’t figure. Most likely those cigarellos. Perhaps Hanzo has gotten lucky and the man finally got some sort of cancer.

 

“If my clothes were to tear in battle, that is a necessary sacrifice. To tear in practice is an unnecessary risk,” Hanzo snaps back, his temper measured. He had agreed to be  _ reasonable _ and he was trying.

 

But McCree made it hard. 

 

Mccree raised his hands in defeat. “No mean to fight,” McCree says. “Truthfully, you keep catchin’ me way off guard. First, the shit with Hana an’ the ‘pology, and now this,” McCree motions to Hanzo’s bare chest. He huffs a laugh, tucks his chin into his chest. “You’d think a man learn.”

 

Hanzo looked down at his chest. Genji too looked at his chest. “What is so surprising about my chest? You have seen my tattoo before, cowboy.”

 

“I’m jus’ sayin’, I’m under the general persuasion that Japanese people are real…  _ reserved _ . Never thought I’d see ya half-nude in public!”

 

Genji looked at Hanzo. Hanzo looked at Genji. “No, absolutely not,” Genji says earnestly. “In fact, some of the first pornography was of Japanese origin---,” He begins in an excited spiel. Hanzo puts his face in his hand and groans.  _ Not this again _ . 

 

“Genji,” Hanzo groans.

 

“And some of it wasn’t even normal, I mean,  _ Jesse there was---,” _

 

“ _ Genji! _ ” Hanzo begged.

 

“Octopus porn, Jesse. These  _ chonin _ were into it before it started trending!”

 

And so the two old friends were laughing while Hanzo held his face in his hands in embarrassment. “You are completely ignoring that shunga was  _ illegalized _ , Genji,” he says helplessly. This only makes Genji and McCree laugh harder. 

 

“You four! Get to it!” Winston scolds from the side. 

 

McCree laughs some more, his big barrel chest heaving and his laugh quickly reaching a high-pitched hysteric level. He waves off the two brothers and plods over to Zeigler still huffing and puffing. Hanzo and Genji turned on their heel and went to their respective mat. “Why do you always do that?” Hanzo asks, in pain.

 

“It is a good icebreaker.”

 

“What. No it is not. An icebreaker is ‘ _ what do you do for a living _ ’ or ‘ _ what are your hobbies?’  _ not ‘ _ do you want to hear about ancient Japanese erotic art _ ’?”

 

“That answer is all the reasons why you’ve never had a girlfriend.”

 

Hanzo rolls his eyes and takes up his corner of the mat. He slids easily into formation, hands held out at his side and his feet far apart. “Perhaps. Perhaps I was never interested in a girlfriend.”

 

Genji laughed again and took up his side of the mat. “You were not interested in many things besides the clan.”

 

How wrong Genji was. How much Hanzo yearned for those normal things, the late nights out, the allure of friends to tell  _ all _ of the truth too or to go dancing. But he had no choice, no option. Responsibilities aside, how could he enjoy himself when he is making sure Genji is enjoying himself safely?

 

Simple. He did not. 

 

While Genji was distracted, Hanzo dashed forward. It was so simple, almost like muscle memory. Grab Genji’s collar with one hand (a brief moment of hesitation: would the plates on his chest hold?) grab his wrist with the other, twist at the waist, pull with your back…

 

Genji flips over his shoulder and hits the mat with ruthless efficiency. The breath goes out of his chest in a panicked exhale, and then in a brief laugh. “It has been a while, brother!” He says. Hanzo steps back to allow Genji to stand up and prepare himself. 

 

He looks at his hands. No sense of foreboding anxiety. No guilt bubbling his gut (no more than usual). His head is not spinning, or heating, or hurting. Perhaps this would turn out well.

 

Genji re situates himself and shakes the dizziness out of his head. “You have always had an unfair advantage in Judo,” Genji whines. “You put on muscle mass much easier.” He puts his up fists and slowly inches towards Hanzo, perhaps thinking that he would not notice.

 

Hanzo put his own fists up. “It is not my fault I took after father.”

 

Genji laughed again and got closer-- to close. “In everything but the face!” Genji says, just as his leg comes up in a perfectly executed kick to Hanzo’s face. He’s much, much faster than he used to be and Hanzo only manages to glance off the blow, not block it. He stumbles again but advances before Genji can take advantage of his weakness. He goes with the momentum and aims for Genji’s face, but his brother is still almost too fast to hit. Genji dodges it, takes a hold of Hanzo’s wrist, and manages to tip him over shoulder.

 

His brother, slight and fast but not particularly strong. Throwing Hanzo over his shoulder.  _ Hanzo _ .

 

Hanzo manages to catch himself before he hits the ground, and he traps Genji’s foot between his own and twirls. Genji does careening onto his side.

 

Hanzo launches onto him before he can recover. He pulls him up slightly, sits on his back, stuffs his arms behind Hanzo’s legs, and puts his interlocked hands on Genji’s chin. Genji’s held up like some sort of prey on display, and the familiar position sends Hanzo chuckling. “Give!” Hanzo demands.

 

With a sigh, Genji gives.

 

They do it again. Smoothly the brothers cycle through all they have learned; Karate, Jujutsu, Jiujutsu, Aikido. It switches from Hanzo winning to Genji winning several times over until Genji ties it again with the final round of taekwondo. Faster and with more endurance (and admittedly more practice), Genji hits Hanzo’s head hard with a heel. 

 

Hanzo hits the ground hard. Immediately his hands goes up to his head, to check for blood, and when he comes back dry he allows himself to slowly gather his thoughts. Normally one wears a helmet with taekwondo. Not that it ever stopped the brothers before (father's voice:  _ Your opponent will not wait for you to put on protective gear _ ). 

 

With a groan, Hanzo sits up and blinks. The world isn’t spinning too bad, so no concussion. Genji hovers anxiously on the edge of his vision. “Are you okay? That was one was a little rough,” Genji asks. When Hanzo nods the affirmative, he nods several times. “Good! Then I have an idea, just you wait.” And he runs off to the sidelines, out of Hanzo’s sight.

 

Hanzo slowly gets up, carefully inspecting his body. Head is pounding a little, but after that kick, it would be worse if it was not bleeding. Hanzo’s fault for his carelessness, anyway. He hears Genji approaching from behind. “That was clever,” Hanzo tells him, not turning around. “I was foolish for going for a middle kick, when you are known for those spinning back kicks.”

 

Genji doesn’t reply, so Hanzo turns around. 

 

He’s holding out a sword. A familiar sword he last saw on a pious shrine to his dead brother, with a lit candle in front of.  _ Ajisai-Ichimonji.  _ The blade he used to strike down his brother, and the blade he never picked up again. 

 

He was unworthy of the honor of  _ Ajisai-Ichimonji. _

 

Genji offers it forward. He also draws a plain washikashi from his belt and offers that forward as well. “Truthfully, Winston had told me you had joined Overwatch while I was abroad. That is why the trip took so long. We returned to Hanamura.”

 

_ No. _

 

“I reclaimed  _ Ajisai-Ichimonji.” _

 

_ No. _

 

“This washikashi is plain, just a spare I have on hand, but hopefully it will suffice. Come, brother. This is the truest way to determine our skill.”

  
  


Hanzo opens his mouth to tell Genji  _ no _ , to say  _ I can’t do it _ , to say  _ The memories are too mighty _ or  _ I am not worthy _ , but he rethinks himself. Who is he to say no? What, truly, is his use if he is not with what  _ was _ his master weapon? If he is to be an asset to Overwatch, can he truly deny what they tell him to do?

 

He gently pulls the blade out of it’s sheath. The blade is a dark gray that turns a brilliant silver where light is reflected. Hanzo angles it to observe it in its completeness. It has been many years since he saw it up close. The hilt needs tending, but all is well with the blade. It has been tended too very recently.

 

Hanzo’s eyes land on Genji’s mask.

 

He looks back at the blade. He can see himself in it, at this angle. He looks drawn, and tired, like an ink drawing pulled too thin on rubbery paper...

 

He does not say anything, but he can’t stop his hand from trembling as he moves to position the wakizashi and katana on his back. Genji obediently waits as Hanzo clumsily weaves the washikashi through the lapels of his hakama. Hanzo merely sets the sheath off to the side, as he has nowhere to put it. 

 

And so Hanzo stands before his brother with a full  _ daisho _ once again. It feels wrong, so wrong, and Hanzo struggles to resist the urge to tear the wakizashi from his waist and cast it across the compound. It was with his own wakizashi, on that night nine years ago, it was only right and traditional and honorable. One part of the daisho to kill one brother, the other part to kill the other...

 

But despite how Hanzo felt, his life is Overwatch’s. He will bow like he has always bowed; he will wield what they tell him to wield.

 

Groups to the side of them pause in their sparring to turn to the brothers. Their sparring, being more than punches and the occasional kick, garnered some attention and a little of a crowd. There was some scattered gasps and cheering when Hanzo put his brother down the first time, and straight out yelling when Genji took out his brother the last time. Zeigler watches with crossed arms, her hand on her mouth. Her eyes dart between the two brothers. McCree peers in interest, but hides it with a feigned fascination with his metal arm. 

 

Hana, however, does not pretend to be shy or hold back. “Fuck! Him! Up! Hanzo!” Lucio is standing behind her, attempting to be some sort of filter, but Hana’s fiercely competitive qualities only come out  _ stronger _ when she’s not the one competing. 

 

Genji does not move, and neither does Hanzo. Their blades are mirrored copies of each other, and almost as clearly as a picture, Hanzo can see Genji as he used to be. A brother he knew. Green hair, bright and ugly, mirthful eyes filled with terror.

 

“Afraid to be bested?” Genji taunts. Hanzo does not look him in the eyes, but moves his hand to the hilt of his sword. Mindlessly, his feet slide into position that years of training have ingrained in him. His soul resists, but his body obeys. 

 

Hanzo does not reply. He looks down at his sword hand; the callouses have faded. They are no longer in the right place now. It has been a very long time, but he could hardly forget. _Of_ _course_ he would never forget. With a rising tide of anger, frustration-- _mostly at himself_ , Hanzo twirls his sword once in his hand. It still fits perfectly, barely touching the mat. The twirl leaves a large gash in the mat, stuffing leaking like bubbling white intestines.

 

“I grow tired of waiting!” Hanzo tells himself, demands of himself, and he moves. He swings the blade upward with his hand, and Genji easily meets it with his own blade, drawn so quickly that Hanzo could hardly see it. 

 

Genji slides out of range, sword coming to his side all the while, and Hanzo parries that and quickly turns. He uses the momentum of the twirl to drive the sword down with all his force, but Genji catches that once again. The swords glance off each other with a metallic sound that rings out in the suddenly silent room.

 

Hanzo experimentally swipes his sword a few more times,  _ Ajisai-Ichimonji  _ pivoting in his palm as ordered. Genji manages to avoid, meet or surge out of the way of all of them, all the while cleverly maneuvering around out of range. He sweeps past Hanzo’s side and to his back; Hanzo whirls to face him.

 

He stops to consider.

 

Already his head is pounding, and his throat feels sick just by the action. To bear  _ Ajisai-Ichimonji  _ again… It was too much. In his mind, he can see Genji holding up _ ryu-ichimonji  _ the best he could, his parries getting more desperate and sloppy, his blows never landing and his footing always crooked. The panic, the sheer panic, as Genji leaves himself open in the chest. Genji realized it the same moment that Hanzo moved both hands to the hilt, bend his knee,  _ thrust with his heart _ ...

  
  


Hanzo looks at Genji’s mask. There’s no emotion, no expression that could reveal Genji. But he still sees his brother, just past puberty, fresh with piercings that gave Hanzo tension headaches, his hair gelled and his clothes awful and vibrant. He’s laughing, holding his own sword.

 

He’s screaming, begging for mercy, begging for answers. Hanzo doesn’t answer him, and it’s automatic the way he thrusts into his chest. Blood stains his green hair brown.

 

Genji’s holds his sword parallel to his head, tip pointing at Hanzo. Hanzo rests his sword by his hip, tip away from Genji.

 

They rush and meet again. Genji swings downward, Hanzo swings up, they briefly meet.  _ Clash _ . Hanzo whirls his blade away from Genji’s hold, goes from the side this time, feet moving in time, but Genji is  _ so much faster _ than he used to be.  _ Clash _ .

 

Hanzo tucks  _ Ajisai-Ichimonji  _ back towards himself, swings it over his forearm, just goes straight down this time, all of his strength pulled into this move; he has to do well, he has to perform, he will perform as he has always performed… 

 

Genji’s sword meets him again. They stare down their blades to look at each other, Genji’s mask showing nothing of what he feels. Hanzo can’t feel anything. So quickly his heart went from the jack-rabbit pace of exercise to the panicked pattern of  _ fear _ , and Hanzo cannot even see his face.

 

He cannot even see his face.

 

Just as suddenly as it begun, Hanzo cannot anymore. He stops resisting moves his sword down to his side, and Genji blade falters from the lack of resistance. He swipes Hanzo’s face-- his cheekbone-- and nearly embeds his sword in his shoulder before he can stop it. Hanzo’s hands are trembling, he’s bleeding again, Hanzo wills himself to be still but he can’t.

 

He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He can’t  _ breathe.  _ His chest tightens, fluctuates, and his heart stabs a staccato rhythm against his chest. His throat is too tight, the room is too small, the quiet too loud, Genji’s mask is too reflective. 

 

The sword is metallic as it hits the ground. Genji curses in surprise, his voice loud and mechanized (not Genji, no life in his tone), and everything stops. Hana holds her hands over her mouth in horror. 

 

“I,” Hanzo begins. 

 

“ _ Chikuso!” _ Genji exclaims as he sheathes ryu-ichimonji. “Are you okay? I accidentally got you,” he continues with concern. Genji’s hand reaches out to inspect the cut, but Hanzo’s trembling hand beats him there. Genji did indeed take a good chunk of his skin (and some flesh) off. An oval welt on his face oozes two inches long and one inch tall oozes blood indiscriminately. . His fingers come away saturated in red.

 

Hanzo rubs his fingers together. 

 

Genji’s blood was red too. Now, it runs black like oil.

 

“I,” Hanzo says again. The room is spinning, he can’t focus. He just keeps seeing Genji, alive, begging for mercy, no weapon to parry but his hand desperately up, his death rattle. Alive, dead, alive, dead, an automaton with his name and his face and  _ oh god, his eyes _ . “I have to go.”

 

Hanzo flees. He nearly sprints out of the room, and the moment he slams past the door, he stumbles and leans on the wall for assistance. He looks down and all he sees is his footprints, bloodied, leading behind him  _ an illusion, there is only a little blood, you coward. The blood on his feet that track from Genji’s dead body to the bath. _ Genji’s dead, he’s bleeding out on the patio, Hanzo doesn’t think as he wanders to the bathroom to bathe. He doesn’t think.

 

Hanzo stumbles along the hallway, holding onto the wall to keep himself upright, breathing heavy. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in, out, in, out. Hanzo cannot seem to inhale; is this how he will die, hardly injured but suffocating on his own memories? A pitiful way to go. Cowardly. Dishonourable. 

 

He’s subconsciously aware of the blood running down his face and dripping off his chin. He leaves a mess behind him, but all he can see is his bloodied hands, his bloodied blade,  _ his  _ bloodied body.

 

Somehow Hanzo finds himself in a bathroom. It is the public one by the common room, with shower stalls and sinks lined up on opposite sides of the room. 

 

He does not remember turning the water onto something scorching, he does not remember putting his hands under the tap and ignoring the sting of ruined hands. His vision suddenly fades back into awareness, and Hanzo is looking at his blooded face. The room is gradually filling with steam from the tap.

 

Shakily, Hanzo uses his forearm to rub blood off his cheek, yet he continues to bleed.

 

The door to the bathroom opens. Hanzo can’t tear his eyes away from the mirror to look. In steps Hana, walking delicately, fear on her face. 

 

“Hanzo, dude, you okay?” She asks. 

 

“How did you find me,” Hanzo asks. His voice has no weight, no substance, no emotion.

 

“There’s blood all the way down the hallway… Some on the wall,” Song explains. She ventures closer. She reaches out to touch Hanzo’s back gently, as if to comfort him, but Hanzo startles and shies away. 

  
“Don’t touch me!” He demands. Everything is too much, all contact is too much. Song startles and backs off, but her tone doesn’t change. 

 

“Are you okay?” She’s concerned, gentle. She’s too young to see Hanzo like this; shame fills his chest.

 

“I am fine. Leave me alone.”

 

With shaky hands, Hanzo grabs the edge of the sink and watches with dead eyes the way the water runs down the sink. His hands sting, and the water is tinged pink from the mixture of residual blood and irritated cuts, but something about the mechanical and predictable way the water continued to drain without notice of the man watching helped.

 

Genji’s voice had sounded flooded and wet when he left him. His name, whispered, over and over. Each syllable like a stab.  _ Hanzo, Hanzo, Hanzo _ … He was too cowardly to finish the job. He couldn’t drive his sword into his chest one last time. Genji would bleed to death in time, he knew, but all that time would be alight with pain. Hanzo couldn’t do it. 

 

He couldn’t.

 

And for his cowardice, what did he give Genji? A false existence, a half-one, half machine and half man with nothing to show for it but a reputation in the underworld. No money, no land, no empire.  _ No flag, no belly, no cry.  _

 

Hana doesn’t move. She hovers uncertainly on the edge of Hanzo’s vision, and her young face is confused. How much bloodshed had she seen, the liaison between armies, and yet she stalls when she sees someone haunted by nightmares?

 

“Go!” Hanzo waves her off violently. But Hana refuses to move. In fact, at his insistence, she only moves closer. She moves closer and closer still until her hand is gently on his bare back, feeling the heaving breath and the stuttering heart. 

“Come here,” she says gently, voice so low Hanzo can barely hear it. He does.

 

Hana guides them to the floor. She rises and wets the bottom of her tank top with warm water, goes to shut it off-- “No!” Hanzo says. She leaves it running. She kneels back on the ground and gently dabs at his face with the shirt, wiping away blood and eventually holding it to the injury to stem the bleeding.   
  
“What happened, Hanzo? You were doing fine,” She asks gently.

 

“I am a coward,” His emotion has returned, and his voice is thick and heavy and filled with regret.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I am a  _ coward _ .”

 

So Hana just sits quietly with him, rising occasionally to rinse her shirt once more before returning to put pressure. He expects to sit quietly with her for a long time, the room spinning and his eyes defocused, until he hears the bathroom door open again. 

 

This time is it Genji. He holds in his hand a first aid kit. Sometime along the way he had taken off all parts of his helmet, just leaving his dark hair flopping over his scarred face and his clouded brown eyes. He approaches unsurely, silently. He does not speak as he squats down in front of Hanzo. He opens the first aid kit and takes out a large beige bandage, perfectly Hanzo’s skin tone, and gently places it on his face.

 

“Genji,” Hana says quietly. She takes Hanzo’s hand-- irritated, irradiated, red all over and oozing softly--- and presents it to him.

 

“Oh, Hanzo,” Genji says. He digs more bandages out of the first aid kit. “What did you do?”

 

“What is necessary,” Hanzo replies. “As I have always done.”

 

For an hour they sit quietly as Genji routinely inspects, disinfects, and bandages Hanzo’s split hands. He then takes his time rubbing hand lotion into it’s cracked surface with Hana’s help. They let him leave without company, as Hanzo brusquely and shortly requires. He grabs vodka out of the kitchen before he disappears into his room. His life begins and ends in that stolen bottle; he drains it of content and fills it with insecurity and anxiety. 

 

In the morning, when he wakes with a pounding headache and a dry mouth, he adds it to the pile of alcohol beside his bed and swears he’ll take it out later. 

* * *

 

Hanzo doesn’t speak of his incident in the training room, despite the base’s best efforts. Everyone mentions it to him at least once. Genji makes a practical event out of needling Hanzo about it, and Hanzo makes a practical game out of avoiding his brother more. 

 

Genji specializes in cornering him when Hanzo has no choice but to leave his room. Practices, meal breaks, and even occasional walks. It’s the morning this time, just after sunrise. The sun is bleak and gray, dotted out by dense grey clouds that drizzle and fog the tiny island Gibraltar is on. Hanzo stares out the window at the impending storm, the cup still steaming hot. He tries futilely to see what lies beyond the blurred horizon, but he can’t see anything. Visibility is the lowest Hanzo has ever seen. 

 

He takes a sip.

 

Genji sighs next to him, scaring Hanzo out of skin and causing him to spill a little of the piping hot tea on himself. Hanzo hisses, curses, lifts his now stained kyudo away from his chest.

 

“Is it my fault?” Genji says in lieu of a greeting. “Did I trouble you, brother? I know that my mechanical semblance still troubles you deeply. Did I not think?”

 

Hanzo sighs, resigned and irritated all at once. Couldn’t his brother just  _ see _ he needed to be alone? “You may call yourself my brother, but you are not the Genji I once knew. You have been nothing but thoughtful.”  _ I do not deserve it _ , goes unsaid.

 

“Then what? Is it…,” Genji’s voice changes. He glances surreptitiously around. “Is it me?”

 

“Did we not just discuss this.”

 

“That is not what I mean. You harbour your guilt tight inside you, and it will drag you down like a stone in the ocean if you are not careful.”  _ How pleasing a concept _ . “It is not too late to change your course, brother.”

 

“You are mistaken, brother.” Hanzo heaved out a shaky sigh and raised his tea to his lips. “I am beyond redemption.”

 

Genji watched Hanzo drink, thinking. “If you are so beyond redemption,” He trails off. Hanzo turned to look at him, and was startled to see a smidgen of resignation in his eyes. “What are you waiting for? What do you stall for? What are you here for?”

 

Hanzo met Genji’s eyes unerringly, thought of his corpse in the water with the fish on his bones, an unmarked grave, a grand funeral filled with white chrysanthemums and faceless  _ Kumichos _ , unfeeling family members and a family tomb filled with the ashes of everyone Hanzo has ever loved. 

 

He knew what he came here for.

 

How does one say  _ I came here to die _ to your younger brother?

Instead he says, “I do not know. I am drawn to you, however you will interpret that. Perhaps I thought that there was something to rekindle here.”

 

“There is,” Genji assures him. “Of course there is. I do not understand you, Hanzo, I will admit that. I can only try to fit myself in your shoes, to understand what you have been through, but dishonesty helps me none. I can tell when you are lying, Hanzo.”

 

Hanzo snorted and took a sip of his tea. “I am an excellent liar.”

 

“I know. You are very good at lying to yourself, firstly.”

 

Hanzo rolled his eyes.

 

“I am trying to say that I cannot help you if you do not let me in.”

 

“How are you so sure that there is something to be let into?” 

 

This was proving to be one of the most uncomfortable conversations they’ve had. 

 

“Hanzo, why must you dodge every question I ask?” Genji’s voice, growing irritated, grows in volume until he is practically shouting. Hanzo can do little but look out the window and steadfastly ignore his younger brother. 

 

“Why must you ask so many damned questions?” Hanzo snapped back

 

“ _ What do you have to hide _ ?” 

 

Hanzo sighs deeply and lays his teacup on the table. He had hoped to enjoy the fog in peace, but it was not to be. He turned and walked until he was nearly nose-to-nose with Genji, staring into his eyes. Challenging him. He was still the older sibling, despite all.  “Why are you so sure you are willing and ready to see what I am hiding?” Hanzo whispered.

 

Genji stepped back, eyes averted, brows furrowed. “I am just trying to  _ understand _ .” He stresses. Hanzo nods his head once, firmly, and reached to grab his tea. Time to retreat then. No, not retreat.

 

Tactical removal.

 

“I know you are,” Hanzo tells him harshly. “But I will not be judged by  _ you _ .”

 

To his surprise, Genji snorts a disgusted noise and leaves first. “This is what has become of you, then? A pity,” is the last harsh words he says as he leaves. Still a short temper.

 

Hanzo examines his reflection in the mirror. Pitiable? Surely, but they have time to think between Hanzo’s arrows. 

 

Hanzo lets out a deep breath through his nose and takes another sip of his tea. He lets himself relax into the morning. No one is awake to scrutinize him now that Genji is gone, or question him or look at him through their peripheral. Just Hanzo, the ebbing remains of a hangover, and warm chai tea. 

 

He starts rice. 

 

The rice finishes soon enough. Hanzo dumps his serving into a bowl, yanks open a drawer and grabs disposable chopsticks from some random Asian delivery food. He cracks it open with one hand and closes the drawer with his hip.

 

All at once, there is the considerable racket of people emerging from their rooms at once. From the residence hall the entirety of Overwatch stumbles out, leaving Hanzo stunned and pinned in the kitchen. People push past him to get their coffee, or granola bars, or apple. Oxton and Hana jog in side by side from the back door, shivering cold and damp with sweat.

 

Hana sees him through the sparse crowd and makes her way to him. 

 

“What’s going on?” Hana asked, just as Hanzo asks, “What is happening?”

 

The two look at each other and shrug. Hana says, “I got a ping on my communicator that everyone was to meet in the kitchen for some official statement. Didn’t say why. Did you get anything?”

 

Hanzo shook his head. “I have been in the kitchen since six,” he states.

 

Hana nods.

 

Considering there is no sign of anyone with any authority, Hanzo takes his steamed rice and his tea and makes his way out of the cafeteria to his room. But just when he enters the hallway that he passes Winston. “Hold on there, Hanzo.” The gorilla holds out a hand to turn around Hanzo. The other is simultaneously gripping a virtual clipboard and a cup of coffee. “The meeting isn’t over yet.”

 

And so Hanzo is grumpily herded back to the cafeteria. He stops by Hana, whose mouth is hilariously stuffed with fresh oatmeal as she stands just outside the kitchen. He looks at it. She says, “Miss Angela,” through a full mouth, which sounds like “Mith Antheya.”

 

Winston lumbers to the front of the cafeteria and clears his throat. Immediately the tired and somewhat grumpy crowd silences. The gorilla lays the clipboard on the nearest circular table, projecting a world map. There are two exact pin points on the map. One is red. The other is blue.

 

“Missions start,” Winston says shortly. There’s a rush of noise, but Winston silences it with a hand. “Missions start  _ today _ ,” Winston amends. He points to the red point, which is in Kings Row, UK. “There is threat of an omnic terrorist attack. We have little time, all we can do is stop the delivery of the electromagnetic bomb. On that team; Tracer, Reinhardt, Zhou, Zenyatta, Myself. A five-person mission but a quick one. Zenyatta… Despite emotional entanglements, I am bringing you to present Overwatch as a unified, diversified front.”

 

The omnic nodded. “I see,” he says.

 

Genji leans over to the omnic. “I always liked Winston. No awkward small talk.”

 

“Second mission. Defend Hanamura from Talon agents. They’re moving into take the area.”

 

There was a quiet beat of silence, in which a tension coiled so tight within Hanzo that he squeezed his teacup too tight and broke it. The warm tea spilled over his fist. The china made a fine sound of breaking on the floor. Several people turned to look at him, but Hanzo just kept staring ahead. 

 

“Do whatever it takes to defend Hanamura. If Talon takes Hanamura, they take the entire Eastern Seaboard. Hanzo, McCree, D.VA, Lucio, Genji, Angela. McCree will lead. There might be agents of the Shimada active.”

 

_ There most certainly is _ , Hanzo thinks, but mostly he just thinks  _ Why wasn’t I chosen?  _

 

“Depart in an hour. Go.” There was a beat of silence, but then the agents were taking off running. An hour was not a lot of time to prepare for their first mission. Hanzo, however, takes his time. He enters the kitchen to fetch a paper towel to clean up his mess; he first delicately picks up each shard and drops it in his hand. Then he swabs up the mess.

 

Winston stops as he passes by the kitchen. “Hanzo,” he says. Hanzo looks over to him from the sink. “I do not… If, emotionally, you can’t do missions… I need to know. I can’t guess these things. Genji mentioned injured hands and other such forms of mental disturbance,” Winston looks down at Hanzo’s hands. They are still quite bandaged.  Hanzo looks at them too.

 

They are quite ugly. They do not look like the capable hands of a bowman. 

 

Hanzo makes quick work of tearing off each bandaid and dropping it in the trashcan, looking Winston in the eye all the while. When he is done, he presents his hands. “How  _ dare _ you imply I cannot do what I have  _ born _ to do.” He snarls. 

  
Hanzo shoves past Winston. He has a mission to prepare for, and only fifteen minutes to do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so about sword names. genji's is named ryu-ichimonji. the first part is individualized but the ichimonji part is about these make of swords that are better quality i think? regardless i decided to name hanzo's in that strain.
> 
> hanzo is a secret soft boy who decided to name his sword after the language of flowers in japan, hanakotoba. ajisai is a hyrdrangea, and the meaning in japan is 'pride'. 
> 
> hanzo is a secret soft boy who names his sword "pride straight edge". don't you worry, genji teased him plenty about that when he was young.
> 
> also--- to those who i promised happiness in the next chapter? sorry. there was a happy scene but i had it to cut it out because i revised my plot line a lot, and thats also why this is comin out at 11 pm!!! sorry!!! so sorry


	7. There is no beauty left here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit goes down.

> **“There is no beauty left here.”**
> 
> **Exiled from Light**
> 
> * * *
> 
>  

Hanzo’s belongings were few and far in between, so he was not stretched for time. Stormbow and it’s arrows sat ready on his desk, as they always do, so Hanzo just positioned the two on his shoulder and back and locked his door on his way out. He was unsure if he was going to be gone for more than one day (it was likely that McCree had all that information) but he was unwilling to bring dead weight. He could scrounge some clothes up from Hanamura, anyway. Someone there must be his size. 

 

Hana wasn’t on the ship when Hanzo boarded. Very few were. It was just McCree, chewing on his cigarello and reading a blue hologram in front of him, and Genji. Genji was his own walking arsenal, and McCree dressed like he was going to get into a gunfight any day. In fact, it looked like all McCree was toting was a bit more ammunition and stuns than usual.

 

Genji looked away when Hanzo entered. Understandable, considering their fight. Mccree on the other hand stood glanced up, dismissed the hologram, and ambled up and towards Hanzo. “Ayo,” he said. “Figurin’ if I could have a word with ya.”

 

In his opinion, Mccree had far too many words with Hanzo, but as an inferior he had no choice but to incline his head and allow himself to be lead to the cockpit. 

 

Hanzo expects the worse. The same treatment that Winston give him, the same side look at Hana sneaks him, the fifth-degree that Genji gave him. Instead, Mccree pulls up his map in front of them and the mission details on the right. 

 

“So I was wonderin’,” He starts. Hanzo’s eyebrows shoot up but he says nothing. “I’m a mite unfamiliar with Hanamura, an’ I’m figurin’ it’s mighty defensible, so you might be the best one to ask ‘bout the kinda setup we should use.” Mccree worried his lip and points to the grand entrance on the map blueprint. “The front is our only noted entry point.”

 

Hanzo couldn’t help himself. He let out a harsh, barking laugh. Mccree furrowed his brows and turned to look at him, looking much akin to a kicked puppy. “What?” He demanded.

 

“So predictable!” Hanzo retorted.

 

Hanzo selected the red marker pen and set to work. Very quickly he doodled the diagram of troops moving in through the main gate and being attacked on all sides by the Shimada force. He then drew another scenario where they funneled through the door to the side, emerged near the arch, and died. And then another scenario where they funneled through the door, went up the stairs, and died. 

 

Mccree whistled.

 

“And this is why it took several centuries for the Shimada to fall out of power,” Hanzo crowed with pride. He erased all red marks. “No, that is not how we will enter. The Shimada forces there are too risky.”

 

“You used to infiltrate that place by yourself, though?”

 

“Irrelevant. The most secure way is to airdrop mobile air drops onto this patio,” Hanzo rotated the map and circled the area. “And then have the agent take out the Shimada men from behind. Allow the rest to enter through the gate.”

 

“Didn’t you just say we would be destroyed?”

 

“When the Shimada was in power. With no one to resist, it will be a… What is the phrase? Piece of cake.”

 

McCree huffed and examined the map again. With a great sigh, he acquiesced to Hanzo’s idea with a tilt of his head. “You ain’t too bad at this tactics business,” he allowed.

 

“Expect nothing less.” And he yearned to help more, despite how uncharacteristic it was of him to do so. Nevertheless he considered himself dismissed and began to head down the steps.

 

“Hanzo, hold on!” Hanzo stopped. Mostly out of shock that Mccree did not pronounce his name right.  _ Hand-z _ o. 

 

“Hanzo,” Hanzo supplied.

 

“Right, Hanzo.” Still wrong. “You sayin’ that there ain’t no alternative ways in or out?”

 

_ Hand-zo _ snorted. “Of course there are. None but the Shimada know them.”

 

Mccree sent him an incredulous look. 

 

“I doubt their infantry will crawl through a small, dirt tunnel underground in order to take a base they suspect unoccupied.”

 

Mccree shrugged as if to say  _ that makes sense.  _ Hanzo went down the steps, leaving Mccree to the planning by himself. The company had grown. Lucio had climbed on board alongside Zeigler, the two of them carrying their own medical packs. Lucio’s looked to be mostly in the form of various electronics and wires, while Zeigler’s was actual medical equipment such a tourniquets, bandages, and surgical tools. Zeigler casted him a look and took off to sit next to Genji, which Hanzo preferred, but Lucio approached him.

 

“Hey man! You excited or what?”  _ Or what.  _ “Our first mission. A real time to prove our stuff, yeah?” 

 

Hanzo has nothing to prove. Lucio is new to combat, new to this harsh world and he has to make his mark on it. Hanzo is no stranger to combat, to cruelty, and this will be just another Tuesday for him. Perhaps? But it is also his first time in combat with Overwatch. 

 

All at once, nervousness overtakes him. “I suppose I could be considered excited,” Hanzo answered cryptically.

 

“Aw yeah! I knew you weren’t as grumpy as everyone said!”

 

That is reassuring.

 

Just at the upward end of the hour, Hana boards the ship in her MEKA. They feel the giant thing coming far before they see it until finally the large lumbering beast boards. Hana pilots it as far out of the way as she can get and then disembarks. She is already sweating.

 

“Hot in there,” She says. She snaps a rubber band off her wrist and holds it in her mouth while she pulls up her hair. Her normal flight suit was gone, replaced with a reflective gold one with sea-green stripes on her hips. Her usual headset was gone, too, and Hanzo was about to comment until Hana retrieved another hairpiece of the MECHA's cockpit. He fastened it over her bunned hair, and connected to that crown-like decoration was her mic. 

 

Hanzo nodded at her. With that, the entirety of the team was in the plane just in time. Zeigler took a head count, nodded, and excused herself up to the cockpit to begin prepping the ship. They were off the ground in five minutes, their sister ship piloted by Oxton just after them. And so the two ships flew in different directions, to different objectives, success hung precariously between the two of them. Those lines kept Gibraltar up.

 

If Hanzo’s team fails, Talon will control the entire Eastern Seaboard. Overwatch will be surrounded on all sides. 

 

If Oxton’s team fails, the omnic population of King’s Row will be devastated. The world would break into war.

 

Hanzo strolls to the door. He could see the clear sky through the glass, and how quickly it all whizzed by and they raced through cloud and air alike. The weight on his shoulders was something old, abandoned some---  _ was it already ten years ago _ \---- some ten years ago. He had long since left the world alone, let it to see to it’s own troubles. He didn’t care about the drugs or the crimes or who was in charge or the omnics or Talon or  _ anything _ . Just his brother. Bringing his brother back. Redeeming his memory.

 

Hanzo laid his head on the glass and sighed. Well, he got what he wished for, but oh god, at what cost?

 

He relished the feel of the cold glass on his forehead while he breathed deep, in and out, collecting himself. There was no room for doubt or thoughts on mission. Only routine. Only habit. Only battle.

 

So distracted in his thoughts, Hanzo didn’t notice Hana sidling up next to him until she laid her cheek on the glass to face him. “Hanzo,” she mumbled quietly. 

 

He grunted in question.

 

There was a beat of silence. Hanzo turned his face to lay his cheek on the glass and looked at Hana. She worried her lip, averted her eyes, fiddled with her fingers. Her eyebrows formed a straight line over her eyes, anxiety bleeding out of every pore.

 

“Hana?” Hanzo questioned.

 

“Are you scared?” Hana blurted quietly. Hanzo startled and raised his eyebrows.

 

“What?”

 

Hana looked out the window to the passing clouds. Her intelligent eyes traced the racing nimbus. “Are you scared?” She repeated. “Of this mission. Of failing.”

 

Hanzo said nothing, just looked at her. 

 

“I thought I would save the world or something,” Hana said again, stubbornly not looking at Hanzo. “I thought that… I don’t know. I thought that Overwatch would be like home. Like… There will always be another battle. Or another game. Or… An extra life.”

 

She was so young. So naive. Hanzo felt a pang of familiarity. He was like that, once. He could have been like that, once.

 

“But it’s like… Failure is not an option.” Hana continued.

 

“Hana,” Hanzo said. “Failure has never been an option.”

 

“That is easy for you to say. All you’ve ever done is fight. I used to have a different life.”

 

Hanzo can’t argue that.

 

“I just… I can’t mess this up,” Hana’s voice trailed off. She looked out the window and said nothing. 

 

Hanzo didn’t know what to tell her. The crippling fear of failure was one he had never quite mastered either.

 

“Hana,” Hanzo said quietly instead. “I can make no promises. I can sing no sureties. All I can say is that you will not fall as long as I am there. I will not allow it.” Hesitantly, Hanzo reached out and laid his hand gently on her back. “There is no need to worry.” Hana looked up at him, her eyes wide and curious and so  _ young _ . It hurt. Something about her eyes just made Hanzo hurt.

 

“Nothing will happen to you so long as I yet stand,” Hanzo promised.

 

He was not good for much. His honor was weak, worthless. He could not wield a blade. He could not make friends, he could not make amends, he could not own his birthright, he could not be honest, he could not lie well, he could not sympathize or keep his mouth shut or get along with his brother. He had a degree in business and a minor in mathematics he never used. He had a book he poured over pathetically. 

 

But he could use a bow. He could strike down his enemies. He could, perhaps, strike down Hana’s. 

 

That was a promise he barely hesitated to make.

 

“Those are big words, Hanzo,” Hana said softly.

 

Hanzo hummed and rubbed her back. “They are true.”

 

Hana smiled weakly at him and turned back to look out the window. Hanzo dropped his hand to the his side and silently turned to look out the window as well.

 

He had made a promise, regardless of how serious Hana took it. He would not fail her. He would not fail anyone ever again. 

 

* * *

 

 

The flight was eight hours long; which was incredibly short. The normal flight, with stops, was about sixteen hours. A jet with one stop was sixteen hours long. But the dropships that Overwatch commandeered was faster; they must have been considered military grade at one point. But then Hanzo looked out the window, watched the land zip by, and consider that he’d  _ been _ on a military jet and they were much slower.

 

Perhaps the slipstream was more successful than Hanzo had thought.

 

Still, eight hours was a long time to sit idle. McCree and Zhou ended up snoozing together in the booth area. Hana spent some of the time fiddling with her MEKA, some time pestering Hanzo, some time vlogging. Which Hanzo discovers by investigating why the  _ hell _ she was talking to herself in her MEKA. 

 

“And so, you know, I’m a little worried… But you know, like there’s a winner attitude? And fear, isn’t part of that I guess. I don’t know why i’m talking about this, I’m probably going to edit it out later…,” Hana let out a sigh, and Hanzo took that opportunity to flip the switch that makes the cockpit open. Hana flails from a lack of support briefly, nearly drops her phone, and then stops to look up grumpily at Hanzo.

 

“What?” She says.

 

“Who are you talking too?” He demands. Hana visibly perks up and flips her camera around to face Hanzo. 

 

“I totally forgot you guys have never seen Hanzo!”

 

Hanzo holds his hand in front of his face, falters, and lowers it. He instead frowns as she aims the camera at the face. “So, like, this is the guy that helps me stream sometimes. He’s also a coworker with the organization I currently work with. Isn’t his tattoo  _ really  _ cool?”

 

Hanzo looks at his tattoo. It is a good piece of work, although it took him several weeks and many hours of pain.

 

“No details please,” He asks, mindful of the connection that can be made. 

 

Hana swings back up to his face. “Anyway, aren’t you from this area of Japan?”

 

_ Hana knew he was from Hanamura.  _ “Hanamura was my home. No longer.” 

 

“I’ll edit out you saying the name. Anyway, are you excited.”

 

He looked into the camera. “Hana, time to focus.”

 

“Yeah, yeah. Game face: on.” Hana stopped recording. She popped her gum, winked, and reached up and closed the cockpit window. The MEKA slowly hummed to life as D.VA powered it on. 

 

Likewise, across the cockpit, Mccree and Zhou begin to stir. They sit up, blearily blinking their eyes, stretching their limbs. Genji already stands ready at the door, his armor lighting already off. The sky of Japan was still dark; the day had completely passed and it was barely four A.M here. Genji would blend in nicely as he slipped out to take out the Shimada-Gumi agents. Hanzo would direct them to the landing pad just behind the living quarters. The engines switched into a quiet hum as they slowly lowered to a hover. The door opened, letting in a fierce gale that set Genji’s cloth tail whipping furiously. Genji gripped the door and looked out the patio.

 

“Be careful,” Zhou told him.

 

“Take ‘em out, partner.”

 

“You can do it, Genji! Kick their asses!”

 

Genji turned his helmet, only slightly, in Hanzo’s direction. As if looking for a word of encouragement, which Hanzo wouldn’t have. Instead Hanzo only lifted his chin imperiously.

 

Genji nodded at him and silently disappeared out of the hatch. There was not even a whisper, and the hatch slipped closed. Hanzo knew Genji would be successful. 

 

Hanzo let himself into the cockpit and coldly directed Zeigler to the landing pad. They waited five minutes until they land, and as Hanzo predicted, there was no resistance as they anchored the ship and stepped off. Zeigler yawned. 

 

“How long until they arrive?”

 

McCree checked his watch. “Supposed to arrive around 0600, it’s about 0445 here in Japan. About 1500 back at base. You should catch a few Z’s, ‘Gela, you got a stressful job comin’ up.”

 

Zeigler began to protest, but McCree interrupted her. “Hanzo, Genji, Mei, Hana an’ I can do the set up. Don’t worry about it.”

 

Out of the shadows, a neon green light flickered into existence as Genji sauntered into point of view. The entire left side of his metallic body was splattered in blood. “Indeed, Dr. Zeigler. You should get some rest.” Zhou blanched at his look, as did Zeigler, but she went inside the dropship to nap regardless.

 

“Right, well. Hana, you go scout out the courtyard, see where you can set up efficiently. I got ideas, but I wanna see what you’re thinkin’ first, I know you know that MECH of yours much better than I do. Zhou, you can go with her an’ see if you can help any. Hanzo…,” There was brief pause. “You with me. Scout the perimeter. Make sure there wasn’t anythin’ that Genji missed.”

 

“I do not  _ miss _ ,” said Genji in distress.

 

“And you! You go clean that blood off, you look right terrifyin’.”

 

Genji mumbled something about it being the point, but wandered off to clean up regardless. Hanzo bit his tongue and silently joined Mccree’s side as he wandered through a side door and into the hallway that held most of the main rooms.

 

Hanzo eyed the slide doors with trepidation. That door, his cousins; the door next to his some other distant relative. Down the hall, at the end of the wing and clustered next to each other, were Hanzo’s room, as well as Genji’s and their parents. 

 

To his horror, Mccree began casting doors open and looking inside of them. Most of them were bare and didn’t deserve a second look. Then he began to walk in the direction of the main rooms.

 

Hanzo alternated with him, casting open rooms and looking with a cursory eye. There was no one there; in fact there was little need to look. Genji was perhaps messy this time, but he would not forget a single person. He most likely disabled them before an alarm could even be raised. 

 

Three empty rooms later, Hanzo stood in front of a door.  _ His room.  _

 

It would have been over a decade…

 

Hanzo pushed his feelings aside and opened the door with more care. It was almost like he left it, but that is to imply that his personal belongings were cluttered around it. Hanzo never had much in the way of personal belongings regardless. There was his futon, with a dark blue comforter; the spare hilts and occasional sword wax. On his desk, any photos he had there previously were removed. Hanzo cast open his closet; indeed, there was still his clothes sitting neat on a hanger. Aside from that, nothing. One could hardly tell it once held the leader of the gang.

 

Hanzo could hear a few delighted cries as McCree explored Genji’s room proper. Hanzo had no allowed anyone to touch it after he had killed Genji, but what became of it after Hanzo left he didn’t know. Seems like it was untouched. There was no other heir to take it, regardless.

 

Hanzo emptily browsed each drawer. He hesitated over the desk, where he slaved away. There was no sign of any of the documents in the drawers. Destroyed, most likely. Given to whoever replaced him.

 

With a pang of sadness, Hanzo wondered…

 

He wondered if it was still there.

 

Would people have searched for it?

Before he can really help himself, Hanzo is pushing aside his futon and removing a panel of the tatami. Underneath it is smooth, polished wood with one flank suspiciously out of place. Hanzo pries it up. 

 

Underneath, just as Hanzo left it, was a thick bundle of printed photos. It was perhaps a fist thick. Hanzo sinks onto his haunches and retrieves it without thinking, and begins to look through it.

 

Most of them are parts of himself Hanzo locked away when his father died. For safety. These pictures of the mother and son together? A weakness. This baby picture of Genji, Hanzo holding him with pink cheeks? A vulnerability.

 

Genji and Hanzo wandering the compound, hand in hand. Taken by his mother when Hanzo was still a child. Genji, round and in a dinosaur onesie.

 

Teenagers. DDR battle. Genji had won, but only because Hanzo tripped. 

 

A secretive picture of Hanzo dying Genji’s hair in some dingy bathroom. Genji’s smiling, pretty face and Hanzo’s own focused and generally dissatisfied one.

 

The two of them sleeping on each other on a plane. Hanzo couldn’t remember the trip.

 

Tying Genji’s shoes. 

 

Hanzo feeding Genji as a toddler (poorly).

 

Some secretive picture of the two of them talking during training. Hanzo is pointing to the hilt with one hand, half in position with the other. Genji listens intensely. Hanzo’s mother had been dead by this point; Hanzo must have been 19 and Genji 16. His father? Their butler?

 

Most of them are pictures of Genji and himself, taken by Genji or their mother or their mysterious third person. Hanzo nearly considers throwing one out that has Hanzo holding a drink in one hand, looking relaxed and drunk in a dark, flashing club. He’s wearing those jeans Genji always bullied him into and a v-neck that Genji also bullied him into. There’s something that might have been a smile, a blur on his shoulders and hips and hair that suggests moving.

 

On the back, in Genji’s scribble:  _ My eighteenth birthday. Took me out. Leaving this so you learn to smile more. _

 

The final one, taken by Hanzo. The only one taken by Hanzo.

 

Genji is shirtless in the bathroom, in the most embarrassing  _ Sailor Moon _ boxers in the world. A little bit of his hair shows through the towel wrap. His roots are coming in black. He’s singing without a care into a brush, a can of hair product in the other hand.

 

On the back:  _ To remind you that I have a thousand others just like this on my phone. This will find it’s way on your social media if you don’t stop stealing my Morinaga chocolate. I know it’s you. _

 

Hanzo huffs at the memory.

 

“What’d you find?” Mccree asks tiredly next to him. With a jump, Hanzo hides the photos on the side of his body instinctively. At Mccree’s suspicious eyebrow raise, Hanzo instead hands them over. 

 

“Nothing,” he says. “Just… Nothing.”

 

He storms out, leaving Mccree to browse them.

 

\---

 

By the time dawn breaks, the team is already in their places. Hanzo sits on the archer’s perch just above the temple. D.VA is just at the front gate, Mercy sequestered in a corner next to her, Zhou and Mccree on her flank. Lucio nervously skates a distance behind them. 

 

When the first sun of the day shines into the courtyard, so does the gunfire. This part of Hanamura is no stranger to gunfights, he thinks, as there is a suspicious, practiced lack of people. Instead two squadrons of Talon forces batters their flimsy shield, and then have to deal with an angered D.VA after wards. Hanzo takes what shots he can, but the Talon troops are well trained and he only kills two, mains another perhaps three. They return to battle soon, however. There must be a healer somewhere. 

 

Mccree is taking practiced shots from the side, dealing with stragglers with practiced ease. His face is one of explicit calm, his teeth gently worrying a cigarello. It is almost as if he is not even actively thinking; that is, until a singular Talon agent moves past D. VA and goes to corner Mercy.

 

Mccree rolls into action. He crosses the deck in one short movement, leaves the agent stunned with a flash of light. Raises his gun. Frustration as he realizes it’s empty; no time to reload.

 

He reaches in with his hands and breaks his neck in one, quick, surgical movement. Hanzo cannot hear the sound of the bone breaking, but can almost imagine it as the man crumples to a lifeless heap. Mccree goes back to his position like nothing happened.

 

Genji bothers them occasionally from the sidelines, even going as far as to join their ranks and laugh as they accidentally turn their guns on each other. That leaves with quietly a few  casualties as Genji seamlessly dodges, climbs, deflects and taunts the enemy. He disappears out of his sight, heading towards the arcade at one point. Two minutes later, there’s a quiet, “Doctor down. No medical support for the enemy team, now.” 

 

He scales the gate and drops to Mccree’s side and helps to lessen the gunfire on D.VA.

 

Hanzo scoffs and jumps down from his perch. His brother, always so reckless. He breaks into a roll to lessen the impact of landing, and upon stop he aims and shoots out one of the men. “Ha!” Hanzo exclaims.

 

That is, precisely, when everything goes to shit. 

 

A talon agent, unseen, had crept up to the upstairs of the ramen shop. From that position, they were easily able to lob a ticking grenade through the upper reaches of the gate and into their midsts.

 

“Hey!” Lucio yells just as the ticking, sticky bomb lands on the ground. “Y’all--,” Mccree starts. 

 

But then it goes off.

 

Just like that, his team is blown to pieces. Genji and Mccree fly away from the gate towards the stairs on their left. D.VA and Lucio hit the wall next to the door  _ hard;  _ Lucio slumps to the floor unconscious. As D.VA is left to maneuver her MEKA into working position, the remaining talon agents stream through the gate. Four of them break off to chase down Mercy, who is now on the defensive. Hanzo sees her emerge onto the uncovered bridge, gun out and her face burnt. One part of her suit is sparking, the wings dysfunctional. Her teeth grit into something determined.

 

“Angela!” Genji calls from his steps. Easily he sprints, rolls and climbs up to her defense. D.VA is pinned down near the door, desperately trying to defend an unconscious Lucio with half of her shield and a jammed gun. 

 

“Agent down!” She yells into her mic, voice young and desperate. “Pinned! One of my guns are jammed, need immediate maintenance. Requesting back-up!”

 

Hanzo’s bow wavers between the desperately outnumbered Genji and Mercy, to the unconscious Lucio and the overwhelmed D.VA. 

 

“Y’all better run for the  _ hills, _ ” A voice by the stairs croons. Hanzo’s bow turns to see Mccree emerging from his prone position on the floor. There’s blood down half of his face, sticky and half black with burnt skin. His hat is nowhere to be seen and he’s walking with a noticeable limp, half of his digits missing from his robotic arm. Nevertheless he raises his gun with startling stillness. “Y’all messed with the wrong damn team.”

 

Six gunshots like nails on a chalkboard. Six bodies.

 

Mccree reloads and rolls forward. “Song! Backup incomin’!” 

 

“Roger!”

 

Hanzo stills his hands and turns back to assist Genji and Mercy. He calculates the four cornering them, sees their angle, presses the button that splits his arrow head into four…

  
  


“Death comes,” a voice croons in his ear. Hanzo whirs around, panicked, his heart suddenly staccato in his chest, but a heavy gun to his back stops him. The voice clicks his tongue. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten you _. _ ”  _ Click.  _

 

The shadow at his back cocks the gun.

 

“Lights out.”

 

Another gun comes up to crush against his head. The lights go off. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its shorter, crappier... me in all my glory! sorry guys lol


	8. Rage on and on and on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mission goes poorly and the team does what it can to give up neither teammates or the mission.

> _**Rage on and on and on** _
> 
> _**\-- Lord of the Lost** _

* * *

 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Hanzo could recognize the familiar pain of being dragged across a hard and unforgiving floor; dirt in his hair, burn on his arms. But his consciousness was just out of grasp and all he could do was scrabble at the bits and pieces of awareness he could find-- a light in his eyes, something yanking at his ankles…

 

The room grew cooler. He was propped upright. His hands were pulled behind him.

 

And he was awake, when only moments ago he was not.  It was like being dunked in icy water; he was brought back from semi-awareness to awareness without warning. He jolted, and his face stung at the motion. The figure in front of him lowered his hand.

 

The room was dark, the sun peeking in through some open doorway not enough to illuminate the shadowy area. The space was familiar-- it was the monitor room, just off the side of the gate of the Hanamura Castle. But it was empty. Previously it was full to the ceiling with monitors showcasing every single inch of the residence with live audio feeds and panic buttons. Now it was empty, just wall to ceiling old wood. There was no sign that it had once been the thriving center of Hanamura security. 

 

Hanzo blinked the confusion out of his system and peered up at his keeper. A bone-white mask looked down at him, impassive and malevolent in its stillness. “Good morning, Princess,” the character drawled.

 

Hanzo bolted from his slumped position on the floor. He tried to pull his fists in front of him-- resistance. Hanzo pulls again, and again, but to no avail. Cuffed. 

 

Hanzo instead bit his lip and looked up at the mask. 

 

“I could go on a villainous rant,” the mask said without acknowledgement of Hanzo’s struggle. “But that would be a waste of both of our time. See, I am mid-operation here.” His sentence was punctuated with gunshots from the outside. Hanzo had to get back to his team. “So I will get to the chase; otherwise I would take my  _ sweet, sweet _ time with torturing every scrap of information out of you.” One clawed finger trailed up Hanzo’s collarbone, neck, jawline and cheek to tap his nose twice. The metal was sharp enough to puncture.

 

“How did Overwatch get this mission information?” The mask demanded. He gripped Hanzo’s cheek hard enough to puncture the soft flesh of his cheek. Blood ran like slow creeks. 

 

Hanzo paused. Considered. Looked into the mask in front of him. 

 

He sucked in the blood in his mouth and spit it on the mask, and he said nothing.

 

An impassive response. That was perhaps the most terrifying about the character; not their clawed gauntlets or shotguns or silence, but the fact that nothing could be told about the person underneath the mask at all. Silent. Motionless. No humanity to dredge. 

 

The hand dragged sensually down Hanzo’s being until it lightly gripped his throat.  The sharp ends of the gauntlet tickled Hanzo’s skin.

 

“I will ask one more time,” the mask threatened. “ _ Where _ did that damned monkey get it’s information?” He enunciated threateningly. 

 

Truthfully, Hanzo didn’t know. He didn’t really care either; it proved that Winston’s source was good for it, as Talon was indeed here to take Hanamura at the time indicated. But even if he did know he would rather die than tell. Not out a sense of loyalty; no, was he truly part of Overwatch or merely a tag a long used for it’s weapon? No, he was less a part of Overwatch as much as he  _ was _ Overwatch’s. 

 

“Go to hell,” Hanzo snapped instead, and like a viper striking, the hand around his neck tightened, effectively cutting off Hanzo’s breath. There was no ceremony or process to it’s strangulation; one moment Hanzo could breathe, one moment he could not. 

 

“If you think that I would hesitate to kill a  _ princeling _ , you are wrong,” The mask drawled. “If only you had told,” he mused lightly. “Snitches  _ do not _ get stitches, contrary to popular thought.”

 

Hanzo scrabbled best he could, his artificial heels kicking scratches into the expensive wood, but he had no hope of deterring the wraith. His vision steadily darkened from the corners in, breath caught in his throat with nowhere to go. The strength left his limbs as the minutes ticked on, and what was previously powerful kicks that left deep gouges became nothing less than pathetic twitches. 

 

Is this how he could go then? Silently, without even the slightest ability to fight back?

 

The mask-- and whoever was below it-- let out a sinister chuckle and tilted his head as he delightedly watched Hanzo die. 

 

Just as when all the fight had left Hanzo, all the light had almost faded from his eyes, the entire world seemed to rattle with an explosion that left a ringing in the air around them . The creature dropped Hanzo to the ground in shock, his head whipping towards the source as his hands whipped towards his ears. Hanzo slipped as he fell, toppling over without hands to steady him. His head hit the floorboards.

 

He recognized that sound. It was familiar.

 

_ “Only for emergencies,”  _ she said.  _ “Really would hurt I got caught in the blast too.” _

 

The wraith says something into an earpiece; Hanzo’s cannot hear whatever it is he says. Whatever the wraith hears in response only seems to anger him, so he crunches the earpiece in his hands. The wraith turns is talking to him, but Hanzo can only look at the blurry visage of his mask and wish for lips to read. With heavy steps, the wraith leaves.

 

Just like that.

 

_ Coward _ , Hanzo thinks as he blinks tears from his eyes on the cold floor.  _ You did not even finish the job _ .

 

Hanzo waits in vain for a minute for the figure to come back, but all he hears are the retreating footsteps turning into a jog. Hanzo waits for a heartbeat, two.

 

_ If there is time to hesitate, there is time to act. _

 

Hanzo rises to his feet as quickly as he can; he sways when upright, still dizzy from asphyxiation, but he tells himself  _ no time for that _ as he walks towards the light to better inspect his situation. Stormbow is there against the wall, quiver and bow still intact. Good. He will need them. He turns so his back is in the sun and squints over his shoulder. They are metal handcuffs, not the electromagnetic laser ones that have recently become popular in prisons.  _ Good.  _ Those were harder to get out of.

 

First, Hanzo pulls his arms as hard as he can against the chain. It does not give; hardly even squeaks. Titanium, then? Perhaps they were taking Hanzo more seriously than he thought. 

 

He tries to maneuver himself to his quiver to see if perhaps his arrowheads could pick the lock. Not the right angle.

 

He bashed it against the doorway. No give.

 

 _It did not have to come to this_ _if you had been more capable_ he chides himself.  But without preamble, Hanzo tucks one thumb under a rolled fist. He takes a breath and yanks his wrist forward. The pain explodes from his thumb, sudden and painful, and it takes Hanzo all of his pride to suck in the tears that threaten to fall from his eyes. _Must I cry everytime_? Nearly twenty years of being a criminal and he still cries when dislocating his thumb. Pathetic.

 

Hanzo turns to look at his hand; yes, his thumb ligament is appropriately  _ messed up,  _ making for a easy slip out of the cuffs. It hurts to use his hand, stings like fire, but Hanzo forces himself past it. There is no time to waste. He plucks a bobby pin out of his hair and effortlessly picks the lock on the remaining hand. 

 

He picks up Stormbow on his way out.

 

The battlefield has effectively fallen to pieces. Mccree is up against the wraith in a duel of some sort, and it looked as if both sides were tied. The tall, imposing Talon agent was not near as imposing the morning light as he was in the dark, but he still struck a heavy figure with two shot guns perfectly aimed at a highly mobile figure. Mccree missed his buckshots just by a hair every time. Lucio was nowhere to be seen-- his unconscious body likely dragged to a safe corner. Mercy and Genji were still on the defensive from two remaining Talon agents with semi automatics and Genji was looking worse for wear. Gunfire roared in Hanzo’s ears like twin dragons, like death rattles, and Hanzo stepped forward to help his brother  _ somehow _ \--

 

Behind Mccree was Hana. The world fell silent. 

 

She was a mess, completely different from her well-put together self earlier that day. Her bun had fallen out of place into sweaty, gritty, bloody strands that limply straggled around her neck and forehead. She huddled behind a dented, burned piece of her MEKA that was still remaining. The rest of the machine was scattered to the winds, most of the shrapnel embedded in unfortunate Talon agents chest.  Hanzo counted over seven dead bodies from the explosion. Hana was laboring over her thigh, shiny in the morning sun.

 

Blood.

 

Mccree let out an animalistic roar. He pushed back the beasts defenses and tackled him, sending the two rolling away from the gate onto the dry dirt of the main arena. Guns were abandoned as the two turned to simple hand-to-hand; which, to Hanzo’s absolute surprise, it seemed Mccree was winning. His mechanical fist left dents wherever it landed; a sound like a car accident every time the fist hit the reapers body armor.

 

Hanzo tried to get to Hana. He crawled down the post. 

 

Mccree flew from the Talon agents front, across the plot a distance and hard onto his back. “ _ Off of me, ingrate!” _ The mask snarled, and went scrabbling for his shotgun. Mccree was already rising, hands to the gun in his holster; nearly blew it apart when he drew and shot so fast that the talon agent hadn’t even raised his guns when the gunshot hit his mask. It split in two. 

 

Hana tried to get to Hana. He stepped over bodies piled on top of each other like memorials. 

 

The white metal mask fell to bits. Hanzo could not see his face, as the Talon agents face was to Hanzo’s back , but the shock on Mccree’s face was evident. “ _ Reyes _ ,” he snarled, only angrier for the discovery. 

 

Reyes. His name. 

 

They were distracted, but only for so long. Hanzo made his way to Hana. Mccree and Reyes didn’t even spare him a glance as he crossed to Hana.

 

She was rocking herself behind her MEKA, hands urgently moving as she dressed a wound on her thigh, and what a wound it was. A large piece of shrapnel had lodged its way through the flesh just on the outer side, cutting clean through to the other side and staining the floor beneath Hana scarlet. She’s mumbling something under her breath that Hanzo can’t hear.

 

Hanzo falls upon her like a man starved, one hand on her back and the other to feel her leg. She’s already put a tourniquet on it-- _ good _ \-- and is working as quick as she can with some ripped green pieces of fabric to dress it. Lucio’s shirt. “Hana? Hana, are you okay? Can you hear me?”

 

“ _ Bones heal, pain is temporary, scars look cool, _ ” she's mumbling over and over, not even sparing a glance to Hanzo. She neatly tucks the final bandage, a perfect wrapping, military, but still it quickly stains a dark stain as the time goes on. Hana tests the tightness of the tourniquet, finds it unsatisfactory and begins to loosen it to tie again.

 

“Hana!” Hanzo snaps.

 

“Hanzo, shut up, I’m  _ literally _ trying to focus!” She snaps. Hanzo does, and like a mantra at a mosque she goes on to chant: “Bones heal, pain is temporary, scars look cool, bones heal, pain is temporary, scars looks cool.” There was a brief wince of pain as she loosened it, but she then pulled the tourniquet so tight that the fabric threatened to rip. She tied it. 

 

She let out a breath. She stopped chanting.

 

“Hana?” Hanzo asked. “Are you okay?”

 

Hana looked up at him for the first time. Her face was ashy, black like tar and burned in some places, showing a bright red and ugly marr upon her young face. Her eyes, younger before and full of hope were now dull and focused. Hanzo knew that look well as he knew himself.

 

“I’m…,” Hana stopped to consider. “Bones heal. Pain is temporary. Scars look cool,” she answers in lieu of something substantial. “Lucio’s unconscious, I don’t know how bad it is. I can’t find Genji, or Mercy, and my com was destroyed in the blast. There’s that-- that  _ thing _ out there and I don’t know what to do with it. I’m down to my my pistol and my goddamn determination--  _ please _ tell me you have something you can do.”

 

“I am sorry. I said I would protect you,” Hanzo said instead, his voice pathetically breaking as he sweeps a hand over her bandaged thigh.

 

“ _ Ow! _ Don’t touch that. Doesn’t matter, ok, just tell me you can do something.”  She leans against the wall of the doorway. “Do something,” she repeats, quieter this time, without the vitality of before. Her eyes slip closed too fast for Hanzo to stop it. 

 

Hanzo reaches out to shake her, ask her to keep speaking, something. She is too pale, her bandage is already soaked,  _ please do not die in my arms _ , he wants to say.

 

“Look like it’s nap time.” Reyes croons in his ear. 

 

Hanzo’s full of adrenaline and anger  _ (why can you never keep your promises? Why can you never keep your promises, anija? _ ) and his hands fly to his bow. He turns in a smooth circle to bash the thickest part of the bow into Reye’s head.

 

Reye’s ducks smoothly out of his way just in time to leave Hanzo having to switch momentum and bring the bow down. Reyes is faster than he seems and rolls out of the way just in time; and quicker to the draw than he seems, as he pins the bow into place and stomps down onto the delicate underbelly with one heavy boot. Stormbow breaks into two neat pieces as Hanzo watches, just watches.

 

Arrows are nothing without a bow.

 

Reyes backs Hanzo up to the wall, kicking heavy machinery out of the way like it nothing. His meaty forearm constricts Hanzo’s neck again as he pins Hanzo to the wall. Hanzo turns his head, struggles, tries to do something. Where is Mccree? Where is Genji?

 

Hanzo’s heart stops when he sees Mccree prone on the ground, laid out pathetically on his back like an offering for the vultures. Hanzo cannot tell if he is breathing; all he can see is the red on the dirt floor. Discarded, like trash. He tries to crane his neck to see if his brother yet lives-- _ he wishes he could have apologized, he wishes he could have told his brother he was proud-- _

 

“Don’t bother,” Reyes says, the perfect picture of apathy. “My men made short work of them, just as I should have made short work of you.”

 

_ Not this _ . 

 

Hanzo turns his head to look Reyes in the eyes. The man was truthfully the image of the Reaper; his skin had deadened with no blood flow. Flesh rotted. Hanzo could see half of his teeth through a hole in his cheek and the beginnings of his brow bone through stomach-turning thin skin. 

 

“I thought that perhaps you hadn’t been a complete idiot. Who are you to be here, with the  _ most noble _ Overwatch?” Reyes growled sarcastically, shaking Hanzo for emphasis. Hanzo’s hands reached up to pull as hard as he could on his forearm; but the icy skin did nothing but chill Hanzo’s hands. “Thought the little princeling of the Shimada empire would have had the brains to run.”

 

“I do not  _ run _ ,” Hanzo spits back.

 

“Do you now?” Reyes replies. “You ran from your home. You ran from your brother. You ran from your guilt, little prince. Murderer. Deserter.” With a disgusted sort of sneer, Reyes looks him up and down with his eyes like ember. “You do not even have the guts to die. You just keep coming back. Like a cockroach.”

 

Conspiratorial, Reyes leans in, his awful decomposing face next to Hanzo’s ear like he has a secret to tell. He reeks of rot. “Talon has a place for cockroaches, you know.”

 

“I would sooner  _ die. _ ” Hanzo spits back. 

 

With his one free hand, Reyes reaches down to his waist to pull up a shotgun. RPNT _ ,  _ on the side. Repent; ( _ he was trying _ ). With an even hand that does not even hint at exhaustion, he levels it to Hanzo’s forehead. Hanzo closes his eyes, accepts the inevitable. 

 

In the silence that followed, Hanzo can hear something. Frail, just on the border, almost too quiet for his trained ears.

 

Breath. Hana’s laboured breathing, heavy and hard working. She was alive.

 

That was enough to fight for.

 

Hanzo reared his legs up and into Reye’s chest. Surprised, the man falls flat onto his back, sliding and cursing all the while. Hanzo took his chance; and he ran. He ran through the door Hana was in and he didn’t stop running. He didn’t think as he took the stairs two at a time, Reye’s heavy footsteps behind him. The man was strong, but not very fast, and that showed as he struggled to keep up with Hanzo’s quick pace.  Hanzo climbed the stairs and whipped around the corner, racing through the compound he knew like the back of his hand and onto the walkway he last saw Mercy and Genji on.

 

Genji was still on the walkway, headpiece dented in and midriff littered with bullet holes. The circular green lights on his flank very weakly pulsed; neon, off, neon, off. Mercy was nowhere to be found; a streak of gold disappeared out of the corner of Hanzo’s eye.  Hanzo dropped to his knees and flipped his brother over (so relieved to feel the soft whirr of a motor,  _ thank you _ , he said to whatever was out there listening in), and unsheathed the sword on his back. Genji didn’t make a sound.

 

He needed a weapon, if he were to do this.

 

The adrenaline in his system had him trembling, and the sword shook pathetically as Hanzo gripped the hilt. He stood to face down the Reaper. 

 

Reyes paused in the shadows of the complex, seeming for a split second unwilling to come into the sun. But he continued sinisterly forward, both black guns dull in the rays of the sun. “Cockroach,” He sneers, more as a curse. 

 

Hanzo lets his right leg slide forward. Foot out, back foot tucked in at a 45 degree angle. Shoulders and hips loose.

 

Tuck the sword over his shoulder, tip at Reyes.

 

“Do you even know how to use a sword?” Reyes taunts.

 

“Yes,” Hanzo replies tersely, and he strikes. Like a dragon he comes at Reaper, the first swing the harshest. It is only through Reye’s underestimation of him that he can land a steady one right onto his shoulder, digging deep through the meat into the collarbone. Reyes does not as much melt into smoke as he _ explodes _ , alarmed by Hanzo’s sudden attack. The smoke rapidly flees down the stairs, but Hanzo will not be circumvented that easily. He takes a running jump off of the walkway; it hurts his shoulder but who cares about such things? He’s up and armed before he can so much as hesitate.

 

Reyes shifts from his smoke form just as he turns to meet Hanzo at the doorway. His shotgun is aimed at his chest and there’s no hesitation as he pulls the trigger this time, but Hanzo’s already pulling back as he tugs up his sword to meet the blast. With practiced precision, he reflects it. The buckshot goes harmlessly into the wood.

 

Hanzo  _ burns _ when Reyes steps over Hana’s quiet form, as if she was dead. He’s charging again before he can think, easily ducking over each wild shot Reyes takes, advancing faster than he thought he could; Reyes lands a shot to his chest that nearly sends Hanzo reeling. But to back down now would be to back down forever, and so Hanzo advances. The sword finds home deep in Reyes chest, and Hanzo uses his tired rage as fuel to sink it further and further in. He’s nearly hilt deep when the momentum of the thrust takes over and sends the two of them toppling. The sword lodges deep into the wood below them, effectively locking Reyes in.

 

When Hanzo can’t push it in any further, he stands up. A little more than three inches of the  blade hasn’t made it through the catatonic Reyes’s chest. Hanzo stands, shaking, to observe the still beast. 

 

He doesn’t move. He does not stir or breathe or sneer. 

 

Hanzo’s sword found his heart, after all.

 

   Hanzo turns his back on the body and runs his trembling hands through the side of his hair, doing nothing more but messing the already mussed hair and staining it with sticky blood that was nearly black. Hanzo holds his hands out; they tremble so violently that Hanzo could not hold a spoon if he needed too. Hesitant to show weakness, Hanzo rakes his hands through his hair again, and again, and again. Something to calm the trembling animal inside of him.

 

He turns around to face Hana. She is still, very still. Just as he goes to approach her, Mercy rounds the corner, her staff at the ready. Her face is all business as he shoulders Hanzo out of the way; she quickly assesses the prone forms of Hana and Lucio with her eyes until she finally turns to Hana. She turns on her healing staff, sets it down, and begins to tenderly feel her thigh, count her heartbeat, lift her eyelids and shine a flashlight into it. She looks down at the tourniquet.

 

“Did you do this?” She asks. 

 

“No,” Hanzo answers, the might of him curled up small and weak deep in his chest. 

 

There was a pause. “Hana did,” Hanzo tries again.

 

“It was good work,” Mercy replies. She cuts away the bandage with a small knife she kept on her side. Already the wound is stitching closed, a large and silvery scar in place all to show for it. “It saved her life.”

 

She left Hana be as she turned to look at Lucio. She checked his head with light, serious fingers. “He’s fine,” she says. “Just a head injury. He’ll wake up in a few hours. Take him to the dropship.” 

 

Hanzo obeys. He lifts Lucio over his shoulders in a fireman's carry and totes him to the dropship. He gently lays him on a cushioned bench, and in loss for what else to do, finds some dirty old blanket to cover him up with and an abandoned equipment bag to prop his head up with.

 

When he returns, Mccree is up and able and has been working to haul Genji’s body down from the walkway. “Hey, Hanzo, a hand?” He calls, nodding down to Genji. He’s got his hands under Genji’s armpits and is attempting to drag him down the main level. 

 

With a glance to Hana’s rising and falling chest, he obeys. He goes up the stairs and takes Genji’s ankles. They count to three and lift him. Genji is much heavier than he used to be; much heavier than any sort of person has the right to be. 

 

Hanzo lets out a grunt of exertion. He can feel the buckshot on his chest began to ooze fresh blood. 

 

“Heavy, huh?” Mccree says. “That’s what you get when you’re half-metal, I suspect.” 

 

Hanzo has nothing to say to that.

 

They manage to haul Genji down to Mercy. She takes no time in prying off a circular panel on his chest with an energy sign and peering under. Instead of machinery like Hanzo expected, it is just plastic wire embedded into flesh that leads off to the left and right of Genji. The flesh nearly has Hanzo’s stomach turning, and he has to turn away before he vomits. He strangles to reign in his trembling hands.

 

“Hanzo? You alright?” Mccree asks in a quiet aside. Before Hanzo can answer, Mercy is snapping Genji’s port closed with a surgical  _ clip _ . “He’s fine,” she states shortly. “External injuries. He was wise to enable the auto-sleep mode; probably when things were looking poorly up there.”

 

Hanzo turns to his brother, squats. He removes the facemask to gaze upon his brothers face; breath gently leaves his nose and enters again. He looks peaceful, as if sleeping.  Hanzo briefly allows himself to touch his brothers face, but then retracts it just as quickly and stands up guiltily. Who is he to care? What right does he have?

 

There is a tense silence between Mccree, Mercy and Hanzo. “Well,” Mccree says. “Safe to say that went to shit.”

 

There was a beat of silence.

 

“The mission was successful. They will hesitate to try to take Hanamura again,” Hanzo says. Mercy sends him a dark look under her brows, but Mccree shrugs in agreement. “Sure as fuck will,” he says. He fumbles a cigarello from his ammo belt and lights it with a lighter he conjures.

 

Mercy sends  _ him _ a dark look. “Hush, y’all know I need this somethin’ awful right now,” he replies. He puts it to his lip and takes a deep drawl.

“So, where’d Reyes go?” Mccree questions casually around the silence. Hanzo looks at Mccree. Mccree looks at him.

 

“What?” Hanzo shoots.

 

“I mean… Where’d he go? He jus’ up and run, or…” Mccree makes a vague motion with his hand. Hanzo turns to point at the sword buried into the wood, saying, “He is right here--,” but stops short. The body that was previously pinned down by Genji’s sword was gone, nothing but a thick black blood stain left in its place.

 

Hanzo drops his hand to his side. “He was right there,” he sighs in defeat.

 

Mccree takes another drag. “Well, I’ll be damned.” 

 

When queried about it, Mercy replies that, “He disappeared while I was out checking on Mccree. I am a doctor, not a combatant, so I did not investigate.”

 

And so the ghost disappears from the battlefield, ready to come back and haunt them again.

 

Mercy calls for Hanzo to carry Hana back to the hangar while they escort Genji, and he does. She is heavier than she looks, but Hanzo does her the honor of hoisting her up in a princess carry. Mccree and Mercy are already setting up in the dropship.  He lays her in front of Lucio, and when he fails to find another blanket, he unties his kyudo-gi and drapes her over her form. 

 

He sits down next to her and moves her head so it is on his lap. When he looks up, Mccree is affixing him with an intense stare. “What?” Hanzo asks shortly. 

 

Mccree averts his eyes, his dark face quickly flushing red. “Just,” Mccree says. “Jus’ real kind of you, I mean. Didn’t know you to be the type.”

 

Shame floods in. “I have given no inclination to believe I am kind,” Hanzo answers. Mccree turned to look at him again, shocked. Hanzo looks down at Hana’s peacefully sleeping face and brushes sweaty hair away from her face. “Sometimes, kindness is better left dead. All it does is hurt.”

 

Mccree has nothing to say to that. As the ship roars its motors and Zeigler navigates them into  flight, he tips his hat onto his face and leans back. Hanzo takes his queue and drifts off into an uneasy sleep.

 

* * *

 

 

Sometime during the flight back, Angela had roused Mccree to take over the dropship to allow her to sleep. So when Hanzo was roused awake, it was Zeigler slumped over in Mccree’s seat and Mccree calling out, “Base sweet base!” over the ship's intercom. He set down the dropship roughly, without any of the finesse that Zeigler had. The door opened with a quiet  _ shhhh _ , opening into the chaotic night of the mediterranean sea. Frogs and birds and cats called into the winter night. Life did not stop while they were away at Hanamura. It trekked on, and on, and on.

 

Hanzo blinked the sleep out of his eyes and to his relief, he saw that Lucio was already up and around. He was skating around happy as could be, not a hint of any pain as he packed up his equipment. Rejuvenescência blasted from his speakers.

 

“Come on kids, up and at ‘em!” He crowed. Hanzo straightened with a groan, but the beat did rid of the dull ache in his back and arms and hand and shoulder. His hand went up to check the buckshot just on his shoulder; during his sleep Mercy must have treated it as it is mostly just scabbed scars.  His hand was set in a brace for the dislocated thumb. 

 

On his lap, there was a tiny huff of displeasure. Hanzo glanced down and watched as Hana’s eyes fluttered open. “Ow,” she complained, and Hanzo’s heart stopped. “Everything hurts.”

 

“Hurts less than being dead,” Lucio chimed in brightly. 

 

“I would not have died!” Hana shoots back.

 

“Yes you would have,” Zeigler reminds her grimly. “I believe at the briefing we will need to talk about your tactical behavior, Miss Song.”

 

“Ohmygosh can we like, give it a day or two? I feel like I could sleep for a literal decade. And my neck really hurts, what the heck was I lying on? A rock?” Hana’s eyes turned to look at Hanzo.

 

For the first time in what seems like decades, he could see life in her eyes. 

 

“Me,” Hanzo answered gruffly.  Hana’s face lit up at the sight of him, and she let out a giggle at the sight of his grim place. 

 

Hanzo’s eyes burned at the sight. She was alive. She was  _ alive _ . He knew this for hours now, but seeing her talking so animatedly and bickering just as before set something in his heart haywire. It must have been the stress, or the wait, or he must have been half asleep, because Hanzo turned his face away and let himself shed a single tear. 

 

Hana took the hint and pulled herself out of his lap. “So, did we win?” She asked. Mccree began to give an abridged version of what had happened after her explosion, exaggerating his duel with the Reaper to legendary proportions. He didn’t mention the anger and betrayal in his voice, the way that the Reaper had no body heat or regret, or that the Reaper was less man than he was smoke and death. He didn’t mention the brutal way that the Reaper knocked him out with the butt of his gun. He didn’t mention the death he once knew.

 

“An’ well, even old men like me mess up,” Mccree continued. “An’ this fuck flipped his gun right over and hit me  _ real hard _ , must’ve left a dent the size of a goddamn baseball in my head, and boom. Out like a light. Only wake up when Angie’s hoverin’ over me like some sort of angel.” He takes off his hat and puts it over his heart, blinking bashfully at Zeigler all the while. “My angel,” he croons. 

 

“Shush, Jesse.” 

 

Mccree answered with a lilting laugh that filled the dropship. His presence was so enchanting, so charismatic. Hanzo burned with envy and something else all at once.

 

“So,” Hana pressed, pushing Mcree a little. “What happened after that?”  Mccree hummed, rubbed his fuzzy jaw. “Well, I don’t rightly know… Was truly unconscious, hyperbole aside.”

 

“If it wasn’t you,” Hana stomped her foot. Hanzo gathered up his blooded kyudo and obi and stood to face them. Hana had her camera out, a black screen buzzing with activity all the while.  Streaming then. “Who was it?”

 

Hanzo rolled his eyes and gathered up the remains of Stormbow under one arm. Let the hero be unsung, he supposes.

 

“Hanzo did,” croaks a mechanical voice from the cockpit, and emerged Genji. Most of his metal panels were off, leaving just the brown bio-fiber underneath. He clapped Hanzo on the shoulder. “You used my sword, didn’t you!” He called excitedly. “It wasn’t where I left it and it was covered in all the… black stuff! I hesitate to call it blood,” he tells the camera.

 

“He had broken Stormbow,” Hanzo said in lieu of an actual explanation.

 

“Haha yeah, that makes sense,” Lucio said sarcastically. Hana turned the camera to him. “Whoops, super weird ghostly guy broke my bow  _ which I’m super good at by the way _ , let me just go and grab this sword and also be  _ super good at that _ ! Weird ninja shit, dude.”

 

“I am hardly good. I am out of practice.”

 

“Still managed to kill ‘im, though,” Mccree adds in.

 

“He is not dead. The body obviously was not there.”

 

“Kill in a metaphorical way, Hanzo, stick with me.”

 

Hanzo huffed in disgust. “You honor me,” he told the group honestly. “It is my fault that we had fallen into such disarray in the first place. I cannot apologize enough.”

 

“Hanzo, what do you mean?” Hana queried.

 

“While we were at our most vulnerable, I had allowed myself to be…,” Hanzo does not want to say  _ kidnapped _ . He must salvage what little pride he had left. “Captured. I wasted time in freeing myself. It is my fault that Hana had to resort to such drastic measures.” Hanzo dipped into a bow, shame coloring his face high.

 

“I am… so sorry,” he managed.

 

Then Hana punched him in the stomach.  

 

Hanzo bolt upright. “Hanzo, you idiot!” She said. “It’s your  _ fault _ ? You say it's your fault because you got  _ captured _ ?” Hana slugged him again, in the shoulder. “You totally had to bust out all ninja-like and you say you could’ve done more? Dude, it’s totally fine.”

 

“Was wonderin’ where you went too.” Mccree added in with a sure nod. Genji added in his agreements. 

 

“Is that why your thumb was so,” Zeigler made a vague motion. Genji looked at her and let out a laugh. 

 

“That! I cannot believe you had to resort to that. Broke your ligament again, brother?” Genji asked excitedly. Hanzo nodded. “I had to break the scar tissue as well,” He replied sourly.

 

Genji let out another delighted giggle, and to Hanzo’s horror, went in for a hug. He wrapped his arms around Hanzo’s still form. “Amazing!” He said into Hanzo’s ear. Hanzo did not move.

 

“There is nothing that you cannot do, truly?” Genji asked Hanzo quietly. 

 

“I am undeserving of your praise,” Hanzo replies lowly. Genji made a sound of dissent.

 

As if to hint, the lights of the ship went off. Zeigler shrugged and headed off the dropship first, being the first to meet the excitable Tracer and calmer Winston. She began to calmly report the mission details.

 

And so the rest of them deboarded, single file. Happy as they all were at the successful mission, they were all tired. Hana was already lagging again and walking lightly on her bad leg; at her insistence, Lucio helped to take her to her room. Winston made a move like he would stop her, but let her go when Zeigler sent him a sharp look.

 

Hanzo stood by Zeigler to report the details. When prompted, he did. No hyperbole.

 

Winston nodded along all the time. “I see,” he declared. “Overall the mission was a success.”

 

“I would hardly call it a success!” Zeigler snapped. “We nearly lost four good agents out there!”

 

Hanzo did not say anything; he should have been among those who were almost lost. Instead he had lived, instead he had gone on, and there is very little to show for it except wounds already healed and a limping teenager back to her room to recover.

 

Winston and Angela dissolved into an argument, and Hanzo disappeared unseen.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that was... rough.
> 
> i amazingly don't have anything to say. hit me up at olateko on tumblr if you'd like to have a conversation.
> 
> also: some interest in a tag or blog for NFBC has been mentioned, so i wanna know... you guys interested in that too? that is also permission for you to create your own doodles and stuff for this verse *WINK WINK*


	9. no flag,  no belly,  no cry.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo finally does it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ii cannot... stress this enough--
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: BLOOD, GORE, SELF HARM, SUICIDE ATTEMPT, GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF GORE/VIOLENCE, GRAPHIC DEPICTATION OF SUICIDE
> 
> i'm serious!!! if y'all can't do that kind of thing feel free to skip this chapter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i do not want to trigger anybody with this!!!

> _Oh starry starry night! This is how_  
>  _I want to die:_
> 
> _into that rushing beast of the night,_  
>  _sucked up by that great dragon, to split_  
>  _from my life with no flag,_  
>  _no belly,_  
>  _no cry._
> 
> _\--Starry Night, Anne Sexton_
> 
> * * *
> 
>  
> 
>  

All agents had made quick work of escorting themselves to their room to sleep. The jet lag would kill him, Hanzo knew, along with the residual exhaustion from a hard mission. In addition, he felt fatigued in a bone deep way that Zeigler had explained to be a side effect of the Caduceus staff. 

 

Hanzo undressed without ceremony. He kicked off his pants and left them on the floor and abandoned his bloodstained kyudo on top of it. He placed the pieces of Stormbow onto his dresser and took a few moments to mourn his weapon. It would need to be almost completely remade.

 

Hanzo was gritty, sweaty, covered in dry, flaky blood; he really needed a shower. He even went so far as to go into the bathroom and stand in front of the shower for a few minutes, but he couldn't work up the energy, no matter how disgusting he felt. So he turned back and crawled into his bed. Laid on his back. Took deep, steady breaths. Closed his eyes.

 

_ So much blood.  _

 

In the dark beneath his eyelids he can see the blood-stained floor of the Hanamura compound; the slick dark pool can perfectly reflect his face as he goes to stand above it. The times change. His face is young and his hair hasn’t greyed, the terror in his face evident. In the next he’s greyed around the edges, stress in his brow. The terror in his eyes has not changed. 

 

Whose blood? Genji’s? Hana’s?

 

Hanzo opens his eyes and groans. No sleep for him tonight, he knew, but he was not deterred from trying. So he did; he laid unnaturally still in his bed and beat off any stray thoughts that he could. Blood? Stopped in its tracks. His brother was likewise banished from his mind. So was Lucio’s prone and bruised form. Mccree, spread eagle with a dribble of blood on his temple; the bone white mask leering out of the darkness; the sword in his hands…

 

The sword.

 

Even just the thought of it sent Hanzo’s heart into a nervous, constrained energy. It hammered his ribs; Hanzo put a hand to his chest and could feel his heart’s furied beating. Now was the point that he gave up on rest. Only his body was tired. 

 

Hanzo grunted and threw his blankets off of him. He swung up to sitting upright and padded across his admittedly small room. His sweatpants were dirty but he didn’t care; he pulled them on while reaching for the drawer that holds his shirts. Most of his things were in the laundry except his kyudo. Hanzo pawed through the folded silk in search for something appropriate and finally happened upon the hot pink  _ I’M NUMBER ONE! _ D.VA shirt Hana had gifted him. His gut lurched.

 

He pulled it on.

 

It was a little tight in the arms and a little short in the abdomen, but Hana had said she wasn’t sure if it was going to fit. It didn’t matter. The clock by Hanzo’s bedside read 2:13 a.m.; most everyone would be asleep. The missions were daunting and exhaustive, coupled with the jet lag… 

 

Hanzo left his room. He paused briefly, told himself not to, but there was no way he was to sleep tonight if he didn’t. He passed Ajisai-Ichimonji on his way out; after his feat with Genji’s sword during the mission, his brother had dropped off his katana and washikashi in hope that Hanzo would in turn learn to use it again. Hanzo did not have the heart to tell him of how his hands trembled just to look at it. In the hallway, he turned left. He could not rest until he was sure she was fine. He couldn’t.  He knocked on Hana’s door. When no one answered, he knocked again, louder. 

 

Nothing.

 

Fear suddenly replaced all reason. With trembling hands Hanzo keyed in the manual override code from the outside. The door slid open, releasing a breath of cold air in Hanzo’s face. Hana’s room was pitch black. No noise. No sound. Hana usually had a video in the corner that she fell asleep too; Hana’s phone was always going off; If Hana was here, there would be light. 

 

_ I only use the hospital wing for emergencies. _

 

“Athena, turn on the lights,” Hanzo demanded hurriedly. The lights turned on.

 

Hana was not there. Her bed was neatly made, her desktop turned off and all of her mission belongings still gone. She had never returned.

 

_ I only use the hospital wing for emergencies. _

 

Hanzo closed the door and sped away, heart going so fast that his chest hurt from the rapid constriction. The hospital wing.  _ The hospital wing. _ Hanzo wasn’t even sure where that was, or how to get in, or if he was  _ allowed _ . “Family only,” Zeigler would say.

 

“I’m the closest thing she has here,” he would reply, but he stopped himself at the thought. He was no one’s family; not deserving, threw away his only chance decades ago. Who was he to consider himself  _ niisan? _

 

He had to see her.

 

Hanzo jogged through the communal area, but he suddenly found his legs growing weak at the insistence.  He faltered and leaned onto an arm of the couch for stability. He was so tired; the effect of the Caduceus staff in addition with his own regular exhaustion at the perilous mission. His thighs quivered in protest; Hanzo took a deep breath until it turned into shaky sighs of malcontent.  _ I had promised her; I promised her. _

 

He opened his eyes in an effort to stop the burning from them. There was no time to  _ cry _ , he chided himself. He put a hand on the couch in an attempt to steady himself, to get up and go to the hospital wing, to find Hana.

 

Wait. 

 

Below him, sleeping with her head on the arm of the couch was Hana. Still in her battlesuit. Cereal, long soggy, abandoned on her chest with the spoon still halfway to her mouth. She snored softly and did not stir at the half-sob, half-laugh Hanzo emitted.  _ Stupid girl fell asleep eating _ , he thought.

 

He carefully set on the edge of the couch to face her. He moved the cereal from her chest to the floor, so she didn’t tip it and soak herself in milk. It would not be pleasant to wake up too, for sure. He rid the spoon from her as well. He brushed hair from her cheek-- still damp, she must’ve gotten the energy to shower-- and tucked it behind her ear. She slept like the dead. 

 

Hanzo put his ear to her chest. A heartbeat.

 

Okay, she slept like a very tired person.

 

Hanzo’s hand slipped down to her thigh. There, in the rip of fabric was the previous wound from the shrapnel. It was jagged and ugly, a reflective pink that bulged from her skin. It did not even have the luxury of one defined shape; it was almost like a small starburst on her skin that spanned half of the outside in an ugly explosion of scar tissue. It would fade with time, but that didn’t help the tide of guilt in Hanzo’s chest.

 

_ She had told you _ , he cursed himself.  _ She trusted you. You lied to her! _

 

Unbidden, tears fell from Hanzo’s eyes to drip onto Hana. “ _ Makoto ni moushiwake gozaimasen deshita _ ,” he whispered brokenly to her sleeping form. Hanzo tucked a hand under her shoulders and another under her knee and picked her up. She was heavier than she looked, but Hanzo refused to falter as he hoisted her up in his arms. She hummed in protest to being woken, but only turned to curl into Hanzo’s warm breast as he walked forward. Hanzo tried to angle his head so the tears running down his face didn’t drip into her clean hair. 

 

He took her to her room. He unzipped her suit and pulled it off her, revealing her pink sports bra and athletic shorts. He put her in one of her ridiculously large t-shirts; this one read  _ I play to win! _ He tucked her in. He pulled her phone out of her suit pocket and plugged it in; loyally it began to light with notifications, but no sound. There were a lot of notifications from her twitch, asking about details on the mission. Hanzo saw his name no less than ten times. Hanzo put her suit in the hamper. He took it out of the hamper; he eyed the tear. He folded and put it under one arm; he would take care of it. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and closed the door behind him.

 

He’s a new hand at sewing. He only picked it up when he ran from the Shimada-gumi and therefore didn’t have anyone else to do it for him, and when he begrudgingly admitted to himself that it wasn’t reasonable to buy/steal new pants every time they got a little ripped, which was often. So with a vague google and some cheap needles and thread he began to patch his clothes, and patch, and patch, and patch…

 

But he was still a clumsy hand. It took the better part of the hour to mend the small tear, especially when Hanzo found yet another around the neck that was less a tear and more of a hole, which meant he had to conjure up a patch fabric. He made do with some old handkerchief he found in the very corner of his drawer, and thus there was a baby blue patch snug in the deep green around the cradle of the neck. When he finished that, an hour and a half had passed and he still was not tired.

 

So he picked up one of his abandoned kyudos and began to repair a rip in its seam there. And then he put it on and found the middle to be a smaller than he liked (he never did eat quite well anymore), so he let out the seam and that took a few hours as he struggled to find a good replacement for a seam ripper, and then there was the struggle of trying to size himself well enough to make sure it fit well.

 

And by the time he was tired, it was nearing five in the morning. And when he was tired he found he was tired all at once, his eyes the kind of puffy and sore kind from when you spent much of the night crying and his limbs aching and unwilling to obey. So Hanzo put aside his shirt by his other projects and collapsed back into his bed.

 

There was no satisfaction in falling asleep. 

  
  


…..

 

There were alcoholic beverages everywhere. Absolutely coating the surfaces; half of them had labels in languages Hanzo couldn’t read, though there was a fair bit of hard japanese and korean liquor. Hanzo stopped dead in the middle of the kitchen. Everyone stopped and looked at him.

 

He picked up Spirytus Rektyfikowany from the counter. How did Overwatch manage to get their hands on this? It was near poison. 

 

He hefted it in the air and looked at Lucio from across the kitchen island. 

 

Lucio just laughed and skated off to continue messing with the pile of electrical equipment in the background. Mccree laughed opposite him and began to mix drinks with the practiced ease of someone who used to barkeep regularly. His silver arm was gone, replaced with the standard hard-light model. Basic functionality, good joint movements. No skull or complicated elbow joint.

 

“What is happening?” Hanzo asks gruffly, voice still hard from sleepiness. 

 

After Hanzo had fallen asleep, the exhaustion had truly taken hold. He did not dream nor stir, and despite his best efforts, Hanzo found himself sleeping the day away. He had stirred just past 5:40 and had not gotten out of bed until it was almost 6:00 pm. When he had wandered to the kitchen in search of sustenance, he had found that the entire livingroom was in a state of disarray, furniture moves to the sides and holoscreen gone. There was a long table set up with snacks of every national origin, including the various sorts of alcohol. Lucio had set up a music booth in the back, and Hana and Zeigler worked together taping green solo cups over the light fixtures in order to change the lighting. Already half of the living room was bathed in a green-tinged blacklight. Reinhardt lounged by Lucio, loudly giving him music suggestions, which Lucio ignored.

 

“Mornin’ sleepyhead,” Mccree answers with a sly smile in lieu of an answer. Hanzo drops the Spirytus Rektyfikowany unceremoniously and trains his most intense look on Mccree. “It is six p.m. What is happening?”

 

Mccree chuckles, a deep reverberating thing that sends a half shiver up Hanzo’s spine. He pours a Bacardi into a coke container. “Well,” he drawls. He lights a cigarello, puts it to the lip. The heady scent permeates the air. “Figured we had two  _ very _ successful missions. Ain’t even no casualties on our side. People walkin’ out alive that nearly didn’t.”  _ Her _ name goes unspoken. “Calls for a celebration.”

 

“It seems to me that you would find any reason to celebrate, were alcohol involved,” Hanzo quips, part venomous but part teasing. 

 

Mccree didn’t reply to that, just huffed lightly around his smoke and flickered his eyes up under his dark eyelashes.

 

Hanzo suddenly found himself very much lost. 

 

Three hours later Hanzo sat on a couch sandwiched between Hana and Mccree, holding a cup of water to his lips as Lucio sets the music to a slow steady beat that Hanzo could feel in his bones. Hana chattered excitedly to Genji on his side, exaggerating every detail about the mission she possibly could despite the fact that Genji was there to see it. Genji listened very patiently, like a champ.

 

“And I was like,  _ boom _ , haha you thought you could get past me, and I smashed that self destruct button so hard--,” Hana ranted.

 

“And nearly got yourself killed,” Hanzo mumbled into the lip of his cup. Hana turned his way to send a glare at him but he ignored it and took a nonchalant sip of his drink. 

 

“It’s fine,” Hana said. “I came out alive! What does it matter?”

 

_ It matters a lot _ Hanzo thinks, but he just takes another drink. Contrary to the norm, he doesn’t feel much like drinking. There’s a hollow feeling in his chest that echoes with any word said to him; he wants to go back to his room. He wants to lay on his bed and forget he exists.

 

Lucio cues up karaoke. Everyone takes their turn crooning their songs into the mic. Hanzo doesn’t partake despite how many times people insist; he leans back into the couch and tries to ignore Overwatch’s off tune singing. He watches as Hana performs an oldie from her country (Hello Bitches) and as Lucio charms the room with an old bop that showcases his confidence and talent all in one. In between songs, people even get up to dance. As the hours go and people become too drunk to sing, Lucio eventually gives up on karaoke and leaves them all to dance.

 

Lucio puts on a deep, slow, bass-filled song that covers up the sounds of conversation. The melancholy tune is perfect for private dances, and Lucio steals Hana away. The two of them join hands and do a spirited, out-of-tune two-step to the somber beat. They chatter and laugh quietly, tripping over their own drunken feet. The team continues to split off into pairs--- Genji and Zenyatta do something half-assed as an excuse to converse quietly, Oxton takes the chance to make use of Winston’s two left feet, Zhou and Ziegler have a good time as they figure out who leads. Eventually just Mccree and Hanzo remain still on their couch with their beverages. Mccree is nursing a glass of whiskey-- it might his third or fourth, Hanzo hasn’t been keeping track--- and Hanzo is leaning on one hand and staring off into something else.

 

He was truly only here out of obligation. Hana lived, and breathed, and walked--  _ no thanks to him _ , he reminds himself (he subtly wipes away the tears from his eyes). She looked happy now, only barely limping as she laughed about something Lucio said.  But her scar reflected light like a mirror, her skirt just showing the bottom of the ugly tear.

 

Hanzo turned his head to the side to find that Mccree was looking at him, cup raised to his lips. Hanzo told himself to avert his eyes, look away, but something about Mccree’s gaze paralyzed him. Mccree opened his mouth, closed it, took a sip as if he needed the courage, and turned back to Hanzo.

 

“Hanzo,” Mccree mouthed, voice barely audible over the thrumming bass. Hanzo didn’t say anything in response, but his dark eyes raked over Mccree’s face. “I’ve been thinkin’,” Mccree begins softly.

 

“Rare in itself,” Hanzo replied, gently and venomously. He did not want to hear his  _ thoughts _ .

 

“Now, let me finish ‘fore you get all nasty,” Mccree lectures. Hanzo rolls his eyes but stays silent.

 

“Been thinkin’ about what you said… About kindness? You know, all that melodramatic shit y’said on the ship.” Mccree placed his drink gentle like onto the nearest surface and scooted closer to Hanzo, so that their knees were bumping and Hanzo could smell his whiskey breath and feel the gentle waft of his breathing. 

 

Hanzo searched his mind; what had he said? The last hours were a blur of tears and sleep and sewing. Ah, but he can remember that  _ melodramatic _ declaration, despite the fact that he would shudder to label himself melodramatic. “Yes,” he answered, equally soft.

 

“About kindness bein’ dead. You say that, but I’ve been watchin’ real close-like you know, I think I’ve ‘bout figured you out,” Mccree boasts. He flicks the brim of his hat up. “I think that you ain’t as bad as you think you are,” Mccree says.

 

Hanzo stops. He looks at Mccree’s face, his eyebrows crunching together in a confused fashion.

 

“What do  _ you _ claim to know of me?” Hanzo replied gruffly. “Nigh three months ago, we were at each other’s throats.”

 

“Right you are, but hear me out, Hanzo,” Mccree pronounces Hanzo’s name wrong. It is  _ han-zo _ , not  _ hand-zo _ , he wants to say, but Mccree continues before Hanzo can interrupt. “You think you’re somethin’ unapproachable or a monster, and that ain’t fair. I think you just got too much love in that chest of yours,” Mcree reached out with his metallic arm and brushed cold fingers against his chest, where his tattoo ended and his heart supposedly began. Hanzo could not find it in himself to reply, too shocked by Mccree’s sudden honestly; is it the whiskey, the mission, or the quiet solitude afforded by their isolation and the music?

 

“Have you ever heard of the grinch? Talked about his heart bein’ three sizes too small? Thinkin’ that’s like you, only heart three sizes too big. Ended up suffocatin’ you, chokin’ on too much blood,” Mccree’s fingers gently tugged the fabric of Hanzo’s shirt, before he seemed to realize what he was doing and retreated slightly. “Don’t mean to get all poetic on you. Think you jus’ got a big heart an’ need to give yourself credit for it. Y’take real good care of Hana, real genuine care, an’ we’ve all noticed. Like a big brother to her, an’ we all know she’s homesick somethin’ awful, so… Any lil’ bit helps.”

 

Hanzo’s voice was thick, heavy, when he replied. “You are mistaken.” Hanzo ducks his head so that his hair covers his face and his reddened eyes. “I am a monster; maybe I did love my brother as I love Hana, but it does not matter,” Hanzo’s own hand reached up to paw at his heart. He tangled his hand into the fabric. “I killed him anyway.” 

 

“Why?” Mccree murmured. “Why did y’kill him, then, if you loved him? I ain’t never figured that out.”

 

Hanzo has thought the same thing to himself.  _ I loved him, I loved him, I loved him--- _ he would repeat like a mantra while he gripped the sword, filled with cowardice, tears dripping down his cheeks.  He has so many answers---  _ I loved him too much to see him burn; I did what I must; I was not myself; I did not know; I did not think _ ;  _ I had a duty; I had a duty; I had a duty. _

 

Instead Hanzo just closes his eyes. “I loved my family too,” he whispered, voice cracking pathetically. “They were just the first to ask the impossible of me.” Mccree was either too drunk to notice or too kind to mention Hanzo’s sniffling, so he just made a warm acknowledgement of a noise and picked up his whiskey. 

 

Hanzo scooted away from Mccree. The conservation was over, and perhaps it was a load off of his chest to speak of  _ it _ plainly, but instead of feeling better Hanzo only felt worse. He felt sick, and his stomach was plummeting down and down and down, and his throat only grew tighter as the seconds ticked by, and there, in his center, was the distinct feeling of being wildly out of control. He swept his eyes over the room. Hana said something to Lucio, tucked by his jaw, and Lucio laughed at whatever she said.

 

_ Happy _ .

 

Hanzo stood so quickly he knocked over his drink, water staining the couch. Mccree jumped up, stumbling only slightly on the uptake. “Oh shit,” he said. He eyed the spill and shrugged. “S’only water.” He turned back to look at Hanzo, measuring his flighty posture.

 

“You wanna dance?” He cooed, taking Hanzo’s sudden rise as something else. Before Hanzo could protest, Mccree grabbed his hand with a surprisingly soft grip and pulled him close. He interlaced his fingers with Hanzo’s, put his robotic arm on Hanzo’s waist, and spun them out into the fray. Hana made a smug noise of success when she spotted Hanzo pass her. Mccree continued to lead them in a lazy, rocking spin that hardly fit with the beat of the song.

 

Hanzo gave an experimental tug; there was no way he was escaping Mccree’s grip. “I never said I wanted to dance, gunslinger,” Hanzo grouched.

 

“Aw, hush. Y’look like a good dancer,” Mccree replied easily.

 

“You do not know anything about me,” Hanzo whispered weakly. 

 

Mccree leaned forward and down to whisper in Hanzo’s ear, warm breath tickling his ear. “Wouldn’t mind knowin’ more,” he crooned flirtaciously. Hanzo leaned back. Mccree was _ drunk _ , tripping over his own feet and humming to a song only he could hear, and most importantly, mistaken. He did not know who he was flirting with, or if he did, he did not realize the gravity of it.  Hanzo let out a noise of disgust and disentangled himself from Mccree; the  _ vaquero _ made a sound of displeasure but shrugged it off and wrapped his arms around himself, proceeding to dance by himself, drink held in one hand. 

 

Hanzo took that as his chance to disappear. He backed away from Mccree, slowly and hesitantly, his heels scruffing the linoleum. He bumped into Zhou and Zeigler as he fled, and he let out a half-assed apology. He raced back to his room, skipping past all the food and merriment and drinks and happy talking. 

 

He slammed the door behind him.

 

He had no place here. He had no  _ place _ here, and he knew it; what little he had earned through virtue of his own fighting abilities he had lost that last mission. He had the  _ gall _ to promise Hana her safety, and he had failed her in the most basic way. He cannot keep a simple promise, he cannot do a simple mission, he could not even wield a simple sword. The trembling of his hands as he gripped the katana was less exhaustion more fear; fear of himself, fear of his past, fear of Genji.

 

_ Coward. Coward! _

 

Still Hana forgave him, still Mccree congratulated him and still they treated him well and still Genji  _ loved _ him. Why? What had he done to earn it? He had only succeeded in letting them down again and again, a repeated cycle of betrayal and disappointment.

 

Hanzo paced around his room in a fury. He huffed heavily, trying desperately to keep it together, to keep  _ something _ in his life together. He turned on his heel in rage and spotted the pile of alcohol by his bed. The empty glass bottles were piled high, nearly reaching the middle of his desk; they were a mix of vodka and whiskey and soju and whatever he could get his hands on. Hanzo can only barely remember the nights spent drowning himself in those drinks, waking up in a daze and punctuating the wake up with more alcohol to start the day.

 

_ Pathetic. Dysfunctional. _

 

Hanzo picks up a bottle and throws it at the wall. It shatters into a million crystalline pieces and hits the ground with a wind chime tinkle.

 

That felt good.

 

So Hanzo picks up another one and tosses it, and another one, and another one, until the pile is empty and his floor is more glass pieces than actual floor. Hanzo lets out heavy huffs that makes his chest swell with the effort and wishes for more glass. It helped but the relief was temporary; and now there was just a rising tide like a monsoon in his chest and no way to fix it. Hanzo fell back onto his bed.

 

And fell onto something.

 

Hanzo moved and felt under him. He unearthed the stack of photos that he had shown Mccree at Hanamura. They were held together with a rubberband, and there was a note underneath the rubber that said---  _ Forgot these, archer _ .

 

Hanzo removed the rubber band and leafed through the polaroids. He stopped at the picture of Genji singing into a brush in the bathroom.  _ To remind you that I have a thousand others just like this on my phone. This will find it’s way on your social media if you don’t stop stealing my Morinaga chocolate. I know it’s you. _

 

Unbidden, tears dripped onto the picture.

 

_ How could he forgive himself? _

 

He had outlived his worth, forgotten his purpose, abandoned his duty. There was very little left for him to do. Hanzo scrubbed his hand over his face, let out a shaky sigh. It would be a relief, twenty years coming; this time he would not fail. 

 

He cleaned up the glass and pushed it into a corner. He laid his favorite kyudo on the ground (he would hate to stain the ground), and sat at his desk. He fished out a piece of paper he had stored somewhere, flipped it over, and clicked the ink pen over and over. He had a love of poetry, to be sure, but that did not necessarily mean he was a poet himself. In addition, would he write it in Japanese or English?

 

Hanzo nibbled his lip, and he begun. It took hours for him to write something he was half-satisfied with. 

 

_ I drown in regrets; _

_ Bury me by the sea _

_ Let me rot in the tide _

_ But be careful: the grave is wide. _

 

Most  _ jisei _ are short.

 

People had gone to bed hours ago. He had heard Hana stumble to her room some hour or two ago, and the music from the living room had died. There would be no interruption. Hanzo took the butt of his washikashi and slammed it into the keypad on the inside of the room; Athena began to make a noise of protest, but when Hanzo said, “I will pay for it later,” she quieted. Hanzo experimentally tugged the door. It would not open. 

 

No interruptions. 

 

Hanzo unsheathed the washikashi. There’s no alcohol to toast to-- most of it had been devoured by Hanzo previously or in the party.

 

So Hanzo kneels on his kyudo and unsheathes the washikashi. He eyes the blade; it is sharp, reflective. As it should be. Hanzo carefully lays out his  _ jisei  _ in front of him and takes a deep breath. 

 

_ Be careful: the grave is wide. _

 

He flips the blade around so that the tip faces his abdomen. There is already an old scar there, cut properly in a diagonally line just under his sternum. To break that scar tissue again would be hard and painful.

 

Hanzo closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

 

He shoves the tip in. It breaks the hard scar tissue and sinks deep into his abdomen; blood begins to flow from the cut like a waterfall. Hanzo grits his teeth and sucks in a breath, whimpering all the way. He guides the blade up diagonally, slowly, carefully. The blade hits his ribs, and with that final movement, Hanzo pulls it out and throws it across the room onto his bed. The red blade stains his white bed, and the blood soaks and soaks and soaks. Hanzo does not press his hand to it. 

 

He allows himself to bleed out.

 

The pain is nothing compared to the relief, the finality. Hanzo lets out a sigh, almost happy. There’s blood bubbling in the back of his throat, and at the thought that  _ it is finally over _ sends a breathless laugh out of his throat. It hurts to laugh though, so Hanzo just leans over, closes his eyes, and accepts the end.

 

His vision is fading out, the sound is leaving him. Blood is already pooling on the floor and staining his kyudo, and Hanzo blinks his eyes open blearily to watch it puddle. Bright red-- he must have gotten it right and struck an artery-- he can see his reflection. For once, he does not see Genji, or Hana, just himself. Tired, paling quickly, blood dribbling from his lips. In the edge of his subconscious, Hanzo is aware of a flashing red light in his room and Athena’s voice saying something. He can only imagine the ones and zeroes, and he tunes her out. His breathing falls into place with the flashing lights. It’s hypnotic, it’s comforting. 

 

“Hanzo? Hanzo, are you in there? Athena says--- Hanzo, open the door!” There’s someone beating against his door. When the door does not open, it begins to tremble as someone begins to throw their weight against it. They could try. They would not get inside in time. 

 

“Hanzo! Open the door!  _ Please! _ ” The person cries.

 

“Put in the override code!” Someone else demands.

 

“I can’t, he’s destroyed the lock panel on the other side! It won’t open!”

 

“ _ Shit! _ Move, Hana!” Someone demands, and the weight against his door begins to double. It gains in intensity, more people slamming into it until finally it crumples under the pressure; falling in. Several feet step on and over the metal door. 

 

“Hanzo? Hanzo--  _ oh god, Hanzo _ ,” His brother says, and in Hanzo’s rapidly disappearing mind he sounds like he used too but underwater, and there’s distantly a girl crying. 

 

He’s so tired.

 

“ _ Get the doctor! Quickly, get Angela--,” _

 

Hanzo closes his eyes. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...sorry.


	10. now i'm standing on the overpass screaming at the cars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end is bittersweet with more to come.

 

> Your life does not get better by chance. It gets better by change. 
> 
> _Jim Rohn_

* * *

 

 

It smells like a garden; damp and prevalent, existing forever in between the sun rising and setting. The growth and soil is almost as tangible as the flowers, and for one lost second, Hanzo imagines himself at home in his mother’s garden, surrounded by the perennials and hanging flower vines, in the shadow of the great weeping pillow his mother imported from the west.

 

Hanzo tried to connect the images in his mind, carefully constructing the _before_ with the _later_ into something that would resemble an answer. It was easier said than done; the confusion took a few minutes to clear out before Hanzo even realized his eyes weren’t open. His mother was dead and the garden was gone; underneath the earthly scent there was something chemical and cold.

 

He opened his eyes. They were creaky and dry, like he’d been sleeping far longer than necessary, and his vision swam in circles above him. The swirling mixture of whites and greys eventually straightened into a ceiling.

 

Not his ceiling.

 

When one moment the memory wasn’t there, the next moment it was.  Hanzo’s hand darted up to his abdomen, where all he found was fresh bandages stiff and starchy against his ribcage. His hands were likewise bandaged. Hanzo held them out to examine them; they were wrapped tightly and neatly from wrist to fingertip, completely obscuring his fingers and cuts.

 

Hanzo dropped his hands on the bed and fisted them in the thin plastic blanket covering his body.

 

So he lived, then.

 

Hanzo turned his head to the side and sighed in defeat. Just like the Shimada-gumi hauled his body from underneath the tree, someone had likewise hauled his prone form from outside his room. Why did they not _get_ it? Why could they not _leave him be_? To what purpose was he still here?

 

The source of the floral scent from earlier was a bouquet of roses sat silently on his bedside. It was a small jar stuffed so full of red, yellow, and orange roses, lilies and gladiolus that it was alike to a bulbous head protruding from a thin body. Next to it was a stack of books forearm length tall. There was no card indicating who left it.

 

With a grunt of pain, Hanzo slowly pulled himself into an upright position. He reached over the bedside and pulled a book towards him with his fingers, scrabbling pathetically until he could grab it securely. It was a hardcover (a rarity in this time and age) with a deep red cover. On the spine in gold: _Milk and Honey, Rupi Kaur._ Interest piqued, Hanzo cracked it open.

 

_How is it so easy for you_

_To be kind to people,_ he said

 

Milk and honey dripped from my lips

When i answered

 

_Because people have not_

_Been kind to me_

 

Hanzo swallowed and closed the book with a gentle _snap_ . He put it down next to his legs and picked up the next one. It was a little battered but in nevertheless good shape with a sturdy spine. _Howl and other poems_.

 

 _I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,_   
_dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,_ _  
_ angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

 

Hanzo pursed his brow and delicately flipped to the next page. There was a part two that continued on the next page, in the same long verse that emphasized rhythm over rhyme. He recognized the first line; in fact, he could think of hundred different things that took inspiration from the first line. He had always been a little curious about the prose but had never had an instance to indulge. Hanzo put it on top of _milk and honey_.

 

The third one was thinner with a soft, thin paper cover. In plain black lettering: _The Inferno of Dante_. Each line was small in its typesetting, nearly illegible. Hanzo brought it closer to his face and squinted:

 

 _MIDWAY upon the journey of our life_   
_I found myself within a forest dark,_ _  
_ For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

 

Hanzo was somewhat familiar with this work, although he had never gotten the opportunity or the ability to get his hands on a copy. It was perhaps stereotypical of him to be interested in a poetry detailing the circles of hell, but it was an interest all the same. He closed it and laid it on his lap. He picked up the rest of the books and splayed them over his lap at all, looking at them all in question. Who had left them? How had they chosen them? He had never quite confided to Hana about his hobby, as he was worried she would find it too depressing and grow worried over him (she worried enough about him already).

 

The door to the infirmary slid open with a hiss of sterilized air. Dr. Ziegler strode in, dressed down in a casual gray t-shirt and jeans with her white lab coat thrown over it. She looked up from her tablet. She visibly startled at seeing Hanzo awake and sitting up. With lightning fast fingers, she opened another interface on her holotablet and sent out a message, and then she abandoned it on the side of the table.

 

Hanzo said nothing to her as she approached the bedside. She said nothing to him, but just took a seat on an abandoned spinny chair by his side. They sat there in tense, awkward silence as Hanzo tried his very best to ignore her existence and Zeigler tried her very best to come up with some sort of statement that would somehow address the complex situation before them.

 

Finally Ziegler said, “There was a scar there, where you cut. You have attempted suicide before.” There was a professional coldness to her tone that was sympathetic and comforting and more matter of fact. Hanzo’s hands tightened on his waxy blanket, and he made sure to turn his face away so that she could not see the way he ground his teeth.

 

“Yes,” he answered shortly.

 

“In addition, I found evidence of prior stress to the jugular and the cervical vertebrae reminiscent of someone who had tried to hang themselves. Is this another attempt?”

 

“ _Yes_ ,” Hanzo snapped, shame reddening his neck and ears.

 

Zeigler seemed to take the cue. She didn’t speak for a few seconds and turned in her chair and began to examine the machines beeping coldly next to Hanzo’s bedside. “Vitals look normal,” she mused. “You were out for a while, but you had not fully recovered from extended exposure to the Caduceus staff from our last mission. I could not risk hitting you with it in such a short period of time, thus damning you to a coma or possibly non-injury related death. Thus,” Zeigler waved a hand to his bandages. “We had to do it the _old-fashioned_ way.”

 

Hanzo looked down at his bandages and used one finger to pry it away from his sternum. Yes, there was a freshly stitched wound: irritated, puffy and red. “And my hands?” He queried coldly.

 

“You seem to _pick._ I could not risk infection. I thought it best to give you some sort of deterrent. It seems that you will scar, but that could have been avoided if I had known about it earlier,” Ziegler diverted her eyes and grimaced. Hanzo did not even need to hear her words to hear the unwelcome sass.

 

Hanzo sighed and rolled his eyes. _Doctors_.  He slumped back down into the bed, back facing Zeigler as he tried his best to close his eyes and will away reality. He willed it to be a mistake, some grand sort of joke, and everything would end. What comes would come, be it a supernatural death with his morality being judged by some omnipotent entity (who would find him unworthy of eternal paradise and doom him to eternal damnation instead), a reincarnation as an unstained soul, or the sweet embrace of nothingness.

 

Alas, Zeigler’s eyes still bored into his back.

 

The door slid open again. Hanzo craned his neck to see Genji stumbling in, vents hissing steam and his posture sagged with visible relief. “Hanzo!” He cried. He took off his mask, discarded it on the same stand that Zeigler’s tablet was on, and made his way over to Hanzo’s bedside in large, quick steps. Zeigler hurriedly abandoned her chair for Genji to use. Genji plopped down in it and scooted in.

 

“Hanzo,” Genji said feverently once he had pushed himself in Hanzo’s face. Hanzo did not respond, too suddenly overwhelmed by a crushing weight on his chest at the sight of his very own brother so torn. He turned his face away.

 

“Hanzo,” Genji pled. Zeigler cleared her throat awkwardly from the front of the bed and said, “Pardon me.”

 

Zeigler left, her absence punctuated by the hissing of the door opening and closing.

 

Genji laid a hand on Hanzo’s shoulder. Hanzo shook it off. “Hanzo,” Genji mumbled, sounding hurt.

 

“Leave me be,” Hanzo grumbled.

 

“I just want to know if you are okay.”

 

“I am obviously still very much alive, so it seems that I am fine. You may leave now.”

 

Genji stalled uncomfortably, lost for words. He did not expect his brother’s brutish and standoffish attitude at the bedside. Truthfully, he was not sure what to expect. He had consulted Zenyatta on the subject but Zenyatta had remarkably little advice to offer besides “reflect on your actions”, which is what Genji did _all the time_ anyway, but there was a certain amount of reflection to be done when his brother had just attempted a ritualistic suicide when he was only four doors down, and he had nearly not gotten there in time.

 

Genji silently looks at Hanzo’s haggard form-- his darkened undereyes, the thinning hair and deathliness in his cheeks. He held himself so delicately, protectively over his middle bandages were were already tinted pink.

 

He had been there when Hanzo needed him.

 

Genji inhaled anxiety, exhaled tranquility. “I cannot,” he said gently. “I have wronged you terribly; I am your brother, but when you needed me most I was not there.” Genji laid his head on the bed by Hanzo’s knee in an attempt to look his brother in the face. “I am sorry. I have spoken the most about us reconnecting but I was so overjoyed to have you back in my life that I reflected on you. I should have known you were not happy. It was not right of me to assume anything about you.”

 

Hanzo carefully analyzed the wall of medical equipment next to him in an attempt to tune out Genji’s words, but it was useless. He could still hear Genji loud and clear.   “It is not your fault,” he mumbled.

 

“No, no. I should have noticed. You were alone, but you are not alone anymore.”

 

Silence.

 

“ _Please_ , Hanzo. I cannot help you unless you talk to me,” Genji begged.

 

“So you have told me,” Hanzo said, but he still turned his head to look at Genji. Genji’s eyes, usually full of energy, were tired and sapped of strength. The deep purple bags under his eyes contrasted poorly with the scarred flesh of his face. Despite the fact that Genji was attempting to comfort Hanzo with the face that he recognized, Hanzo  just felt a rise of despair.

 

_Useless. Good for nothing. Kinslayer. Traitor. Look at how worried he is! He is not sleeping well. Fool. Should have done it right the first time._

 

“Is it… me? Are you still plagued by guilt?” Genji ventured again in the quiet, searching for an answer that Hanzo really did not have to give. He leaned forward and closer to Hanzo. “Hanzo, I want you to move on. I want you to live. I want you to be _happy_.”

 

Hanzo just shook his head mutely. The more that Genji pried and begged, blamed himself, the hotter the tears behind Hanzo’s eyed burned. “No, Genji,” he managed through a watery throat. “It is not your fault. It was _never_ your fault. It is me. Again, I was too weak.” They both knew they were not thinking of recent events.

 

Genji’s hand reached up to hold Hanzo’s. His mechanical fingers were far from cold, instead warmed by the constant surges of electricity and blood underneath the titanium plating. He squeezed very gently to encourage Hanzo to continue on.

 

“I have failed, and instead of my failure punishing only me and pushing me from all I have ever known, it nearly took Hana’s life. It nearly took _your_ life.” Hanzo’s voice broke in two, like delicate china, and Hanzo cleared his throat desperately in an attempt to sound strong and sure despite how _small_ he felt. “What use am I, if not for a blade?”

 

Genji laid his other hand on their joined hands.

 

“I am not a hero regardless of how hard you disagree, I am just a ghost that is haunting you. I am _bound_ to you now, do you not understand?” Hanzo cleared his throat again. But it did little when he began to speak again. “I am trapped here as I have always been _trapped here_ , and--- and any attempt I have to leave is foiled. It was almost simpler when you dead.” At the final word, tears finally broke past the dam Hanzo had painstakingly built inside of himself and streamed silently down his cheeks.

 

Genji made a sound almost like a flower wilting, if such a thing could be heard by mortal ears. “Hanzo,” he said sympathetically.

 

“I killed you. I watched you die, and yet I even went so far as to bond with Hana as if I _deserve_ such a thing and I-- I. She is just a child-- and I--- I saw _you_ in her, and I just---. I have already thrown away my chance.” He paused. “Yet the Gods---or, or _whatever_. Left me here. Left me here to die a natural death, it seems.”

 

Hanzo’s voice was already raw from talking so much in one time period. He stopped, cleared it. Suddenly it seemed like those few sentences took all of his energy out of him.

 

“I do not want you to die,” Genj whispered beside him.

 

Hanzo closed his eyes. “I know,” he replied. “Perhaps this is the one time I do what I wish to do.”

 

Genji said nothing more. He reached up and gently pet Hanzo’s hair, even if Hanzo protested to such a thing, but all of a sudden his eyelids were so heavy.

 

...

 

When Hanzo woke again, the room was dark, empty and silent. The sun had set it seemed, leaving the entire medical wing feeling cold and lonely despite the sparse and somewhat unwelcome company. Hanzo sighed a breath of relief.

 

At the heaving of his chest, someone made a displeased huff. Hanzo stopped completely and looked down.

 

Sleeping on his chest, squeezed into the tiny space affording by the bed was Hana, her hand cushioning her admittedly chubby cheek. Her hair was strewn all over, messily gathered in some way so that she would not lay on it. She was still in her battlesuit, like she had come straight from practice. Belatedly, Hanzo realized that it was the battlesuit he had repaired with the small blue patch on the shoulder.

 

Hanzo turned his head. On the other side, Genji was sleeping with his head in his arms. He snoozed peacefully, softly, not a noise to be made beside the low hum of his internal motors. His two guests slept soundly, unaware of Hanzo’s awakening. He reached out to unsurely hold his hand over Hana’s back; he hesitated. Watched the rising and falling of her ribs. He sighed in defeat and dropped his hand to his side again.

 

Hanzo tried to sleep again, but he was no longer tired. Who knows how long he had slept? Hanzo leaned back into his pillow and looked to the side forlornly. The flowers still sat undisturbed on his bedside, healthy and vibrant and so unlike the person they were here for. Someone had moved the books from the bed to the bedside again. Hanzo half-thought about reading, but it was too dark to truly see the words and Hanzo did not want to risk turning on a light and waking up his guests. That was a conversation he did not want to have.

 

Hanzo sighed again. _Should have gone for the neck._

 

The mechanical door to the hallway opened up with a quiet woosh. A figure stood in the doorway, illuminated by the yellow light of the hallway, a dark enigma. Hanzo squinted in an attempt to recognize the figure. As they approached, Hanzo’s eyes adjusted to the light and soon he could make out shaggy brown hair, a messy beard, a tacky country t shirt and baggy sweats… Mccree.

 

He seemed surprised to see Hanzo awake. He looked the side, rubbed his neck, cleared his throat. Hanzo raised his eyebrows impatiently. “I uh,” Mccree stammered. “Came to pick up Hana. Angie told me she fell asleep here.”

 

“I have noticed,” Hanzo replied dryly, motioning to Hana’s sleeping figure.

 

Mccree made his way over the bedside and hovered unsurely by Hana, eyes darting up to ask permission. Hanzo lifted his arms in the universal _go ahead_ symbol. Mccree proceeded to tuck his hands under Hana’s side and knees and lift her up princess style. He  then shifted Hana so her head was on his shoulder and he was holding her under her butt as if she was a toddler, and a thin one at that: but Hanzo knew she was not so thin and not so young. Mccree was just _strong_.

 

“Will you take Genji?” Hanzo queried.

 

“Naw, ‘less you want me too,” Mccree answered. “He can sleep anywhere, anytime. Figured he won’t wake up to regret it. ‘Lso, weighs a literal ton.”

 

 _Perhaps I do not want Genji fussing over me._ Hanzo hid his sour thoughts with a nod; he would not burden Mccree with his brother as well. He closed his eyes and waited for Mccree to leave with Hana, but Mccree did not leave. He stood awkwardly by the bed side, cradling Hana and saying nothing.

 

“Do not feel like it is necessary to offer comforting words to the poor sickly man who committed suicide, Mccree,” Hanzo snapped harshly. “I do not want your pity.”

 

“Damn bedbound after a suicide attempt and you’re still mean as hell,” Mccree snipped back-- he stopped at the end like he regretted it and reeled in a deep breath; exhaled, voice softer this time: “I mean… you feelin’ ok?”

 

Hanzo rolled his eyes. “Take a guess,” he answered. “Are you here to blather on endlessly and interrupt my sleep or fetch Hana and go?”

 

Mcree shuffled his feet and shifted Hana in his grip. “I figured you’d want company, but I’m awful poor at talkin’ on demand.”

 

“How surprising,” Hanzi answered dryly.

 

Mccree stilled. “Truthfully, I don’t see the point in fillin’ moments like this with empty talk,” he answered more seriously. He hooked his foot under a chair off to the side and dragged it over to sit in it. He adjusted Hana on his lap to a more comfortable position and reclined.

 

Hanzo could not deny the wisdom of his words. It seemed that now that Hanzo took his fate into his own hands that everyone had something to say; all of it unappreciated and uninvited. They asked whose fault it was, who was to blame, as if this was truly a reflection of themselves rather than Hanzo’s relentless weakness. He had failed. He had failed in the one way he could not and he had to pay for it.

 

Mccree’s words from the party rang in his head. _You just have a big heart_. Hanzo could not help but to deny it; he killed his brother, abandoned his family, struggled to make the most basic of connections. What heart did he claim to own? Only a cold one.

 

Mccree still did not say anything. He just reclined in the chair with Hana perched uncomfortably on his lap, hat tipped to cover his eyes. Hanzo observed him while he was not looking. Scruffy, tired looking, had a smell like a wildfire and cigarello smoke hazard. Mccree and Hanzo got along on a basic level after their very awkward reconciliation, but the man was nevertheless a symbol of how truly unwelcome Hanzo was here. He was aware that they had similar pasts; one of crime, and duty, and necessity but Mccree was still so different from him. What was the difference between them?

 

 _For starters, the people Mccree killed are not around bothering them_.

 

Hanzo threw away all cares and reaches over to turn on his lamp. Genji did not even stir, though Hana let out a grunt that went ignored. Hanzo reached out for the first book on his bedside and surfaced with Dante. Hanzo pulled it open again and tried to drown again in the sweet safety of literature.

 

Unfortunately, he was not alone.

 

“I see you got my gifts!” Mccree said from his bedside. Hanzo send him a look under his eyebrows.

 

“What,” Hanzo replied very eloquently.

 

“When I caught wind of what happened, I was like, _well shit, how does one deal with this in a socially acceptable way_ , an’ Hana was talkin’ about gifts,” Mccree nodded to the flowers. Hanzo wondered at their color and wondered why Hana picked something so vivacious for him. “An’ I said, ‘well, the dude likes poetry,’ so I popped down to that old shop in Gibraltar an’ told the grandpa workin’ there to point me to some poetry and this is just the first things I picked up,” Mccree motioned humbly to the pile of books next to the bedside. Hanzo peered down at the book in his hands, partly awed by Mccree’s thoughtfulness and partially shamed by his own weakness. Three hardcover books in this time were _not_ cheap.

 

“Mccree, I am sorry,” Hanzo mumbled. “I have been a great burden. I will repay you in full the first chance I can. I did not mean to bother you,” Hanzo closed the book and leaned his upper body forward, doing the best he could to bow with Genji still slumbering on his legs like a deadweight.

 

“Bother me? Shit, Hanzo, probably needed the fresh air. Things were gettin’ stressful at base,” Mccree waved Hanzo off. Hanzo peered at him under his mop of hair, a question on his lips that he won’t say.

 

Mccree heard it regardless. “Everyone’s real torn up about ya.”

 

Hanzo huffed. “Try again.”

 

“Nah, nah,” Mccree insisted as he pulled out his cigarellos and zippo. He lights it, takes a huff, and removes it again. “They feel responsible; like, only so many people in Overwatch right now and you just… Yeah. That stuff.”

 

Mccree pops his cigarello back into his mouth, leaving his big paw of a hand over his face. He sucks in a deep drag and exhales it through his nose. “So,” he continues, less energized than before.  “You know, everyone’s feelin’ real bad because you were just beginnin’ to fit in too.” His eyes are staring straight ahead, empty, reciting the story like an automaton. “Findin’ the alcohol and the letter jus’ knocked our boots right off.”

 

“Jisei,” Hanzo provides.

 

“Jee-say, whatever. Point is, no one really saw it comin’. Usually you can jus’ tell if someone has depression, y’know? Thinkin _I_ shoulda been able to peg you from day one, but,” Mccree chews on his cigarello. “Jus’ blindsided us real good, is’all.”

 

Hanzo sighs through his nose. He holds out a hand to Mccree, which puzzles him for a minute until he finally hands over his cigarillos. Hanzo fishes one out, puts it proper in his mouth, and retrieves the zippo. Lights up.

 

A filthy habit. One he picked up and dropped over the years. He was currently on a _drop_ until he picked it up. The cigarillo is at least sweeter than the usual cheap cigarettes that Hanzo allowed himself to smoke. He tilts his head back and blows smoke into the air. The hospital room is perforated with the heady smell of cigar and the damp atmosphere of death. The sun goes to peek through the shuttered windows, bathing the previously dark room in orange light like the hellfire burning in the rings of _Dante's_ hell.

 

Hanzo carefully detangles his legs from Genji’s head and scoots to the edge of the bed. Mccree begins to squawk in protest, but before he can stop him, Hanzo is putting his feet on the ground and going through the laborious process of standing up. It hurts, sharp and cruel in his chest, but he’s suddenly full of the feeling of needing to go. Where? He is bound to an IV drip that Hanzo is too wise to rip out, so he’s most likely doomed to a humiliating stumble around the hallways to work out the frantic energy.

 

 _Depression. Entire base worked up. Real worried._ This is the opposite of what he wanted.

 

Mccree is still protesting, but Hanzo has tuned him out. He takes hold of his IV drip and lugs it along like some sort of unfortunate suitcase. Hana stirs at his Mccree’s yelling, and she begins to yell too, and to add to that ruckus is Genji’s own confusion the previously silent visiting area is suddenly full of two yelling adults and one very determined invalid. Genji begins to shout too. The three of them generally make a huge fuss at Hanzo leaving, but he’s not really listening.

 

He has to get out of here.

 

“Hanzo, you know y’can’t really go anywhere right now, you’re messed up right proper--,”

“Han, stop being stupid and just get back into bed! You’re even still in the hospital uniform--,”

“Anija, you know that this is not wise, come on, Angela will be _so_ mad--,”

 

Hana finally gets the courage and wakefulness to dart ahead of the stumbling Hanzo and block his path. “Hanzo, where you going? Come on, you’re in no state to move around,” Hana says. She reaches out to steer Hanzo by his elbow, but he throws her off. Hana stutters, so unused to this side of Hanzo that she can do little but stall. Likewise, Genji and Mccree quiet. _And so the prey knows the predator_.

 

“I am not _disabled_!” Hanzo spits.

 

Hana seems to regain her confidence at the ugly head of his hydratic bitterness. “Uh, _yeah_ , you totally are right now!” She shouts back, motioning with a sweeping hand to all of his bandages and drips and ugly hospital clothing.

 

 _Touche_.

 

But he won’t be stopped. He moves past her and towards the door. Instead of being face-to-face with the automated door, Angela Ziegler is standing akimbo in the doorway. She is absolutely _fuming_ , her hair only seems to halo her red face and her downturned eyebrows.

 

Genji groans, loud and long. He is familiar with this particular beast of the Watchpoint. “Now look what you’ve done! You’ve gone and woken the cops!” He crows miserably.

 

…

 

One hour later sees Hanzo sat on the edge of his hospital bed like a scolded child.

 

Winston, Ziegler and Oxton stand before them, looking everything between sheepish, mildly irritated and very uncomfortable. The other three (Mccree, Hana and Genji) were banished out of Hanzo’s room the moment Ziegler saw he was up and awake. She ushered him back into bed, _attempted_ to take the cigarello from him and called the Strike Commander. So Winston strolled in about twenty minutes later, Oxton hot on his feet.

 

“Hanzo,” Winston says.

 

Hanzo’s cigarillo is almost gone. He eyes it with a sort of displeased annoyance, as if it was _its_ fault for running out after being nursed for an hour and a half. “What,” he snaps.

 

“You have got to understand that my hands are tied here,” Winston managed.

 

“I understand no such thing.”

 

“Usually, well--,” Winston rubbed his neck sheepishly. “Usually if this happens to personnel we send them home with an honorable discharge, with the offer of full support for them and their dependents. But in this case,” Winston stopped off.

 

“I have no home to return to, all of my ties are in the organization, this is not an official military organization, and _yet_ you do not have the ability to keep me.”

 

“I _do_ have the ability,” Winston insisted. “I just don’t have the heart for it. You clearly aren’t suited for combat---,”

 

“---I am still able---,”

 

“-- _Without_ undue stress, and I can’t in the right mind allow you to do that. You are now a non combatant.” _Noncombatant_. The word stings more than the rebuttal does. “And we don’t have the room for noncombatants right now.”

 

“Then _dismiss_ me,” Hanzo insists. At that point, a rather sick sort of jokes causes his lips to curl humorlessly. “Or, a better alternative, escort me to the nearest cliff and allow me to… how is it said? _Finish the job_.”

 

Winston ‘vaguely uncomfortable’ look skyrockets to straight unbearable. Oxton goes to rub the back of her friend, while Ziegler only purses her lips and pulls out her tablet.

 

“From our brief interview I was able to form a diagnosis; though I pressure you to retrieve a second opinion, as I am not a psychiatrist,” Ziegler says. Before the two leaders arrived, Ziegler had sat Hanzo down and asked all sort of strange and invasive questions.

 

_In the past two weeks, how often have you felt down, depressed, or hopeless?_

_The majority of those two weeks._

 

_Have you had any thoughts of suicide? If so, how often?_

_Yes, every day._

 

_How is your sleep?_

_Poor. I sleep little, often woken by nightmares or restlessness._

 

_Do you often have nightmares?_

_Yes._

 

_Can you remember them?_

_They are all the same. I only wake up afraid._

 

_What about day-to-day triggers, considering audio and visual?_

_Often._

 

Hanzo had attempted to clam up, but something about her short and official questioning made it easy for Hanzo to reply. There was no emotion in them.

 

“Hanzo has chronic depression and what looks like severe PTSD on top of that. I did not screen for other mood disorders or personality disorders understandably,” Ziegler puts her tablet down.

 

“I do not have a mood disorder or a personality disorder!” Hanzo protested.

 

“That I know of, _yes_ , that is what I just said. I am not a psychiatrist or anything like it. Hanzo needs a doctor,” Ziegler said, mostly to Winston and less to Hanzo himself. She flushes when she realized that _she_ was the doctor. “A different doctor. We cannot in good conscience keep him here, especially considering it exacerbated his depression.”

 

“ _Exacerbated my_ \--,” Hanzo blurts.

 

“We can’t,” Winston agreed. “But we can’t just send him away. He has nowhere to go!”

 

 _I’m going to the grave_ , Hanzo thinks bitterly.

 

“Alright, alright, let’s lower the volume a couple decibels. Here’s an alternative, loves,” Oxton chimed in, unsurely trying her best to quiet the charged atmosphere of the room. “Situation in King’s Row is still a little tense, yeah? We set him up in London as an agent to monitor the stress levels. Rendezvous when we have missions there. He can pursue some help in the meantime, and rejoin with the rest of us when he’s feelin’ up to it.” For the first time in the conversation, Oxton turned and addressed Hanzo.

 

“That sound okay, big guy?” She asked.

 

Hanzo felt a little thankful at her interference, but more steamed by the fact three _near strangers_ stood in front of him debating his future without so much demanding input from Hanzo. They had never even considered that--

 

“I do not need help,” Hanzo spat. The three agents looked to each other in confusion, as if to say _of course you do_. “I have always been like this,” Hanzo supplies a bit quieter.

 

“ _Always?_ ” Oxton croaks.

 

“As long as I can remember,” Hanzo confirms. Ziegler drops her head into her hands, shaking her head mournfully, and she has to briefly turn her back on the company as she mutters into her hands. “ _Always_ ?” She echoes. “Mein gott, where was your _doctor_ ? Where was your _family_?”

 

Unamused, Hanzo replied, “You know where Genji went. Nevertheless, I do not need help. It is… It is a reflection of myself. It is a reflection of my poor discipline. I allowed myself to become lenient while I was stationed here, and I can nothing about that than apologize for how much trouble I have caused you and your organization.” The words were bitter, the apology insincere, eked forth by habit and upbringing.

 

The three of them exchanged another look. Being out of the loop only made Hanzo more irritated, which he wasn’t sure was physically possible at this point.

 

“We’ll give you time,” Winston concluded awkwardly. The three of them filed out, although Ziegler lingered to give Hanzo a neutral face of disappoint that clearly grounded him to his room. Hanzo fell back onto his uncomfortable plastic pillows and sighed deeply.

 

_Noncombatant._

 

Hanzo turns over and buries his face in his pillow in some attempt to quell the rising panic in his chest. _Noncombatant_ . He has not been a _noncombatant_ since he was a preteen. The dismissal from Overwatch did not bother him, truly, as he had been without a home for nearing ten years and it would not be so taxing to simply pick up the assassination business again. However the offer of a station in London tugged at his consciousness. He could still be useful. Still see Genji.

 

But Hanzo did not _need_ help.

 

Whatever they spoke of with their diagnoses went over Hanzo’s head; what he did not understand is that there was nothing wrong with him. He had been this way the entirety of his life, or leastwise what he could remember of it. _Feelings of hopelessness._ Hanzo is just pessimistic. _Lack of or surplus of sleep._ Hanzo had to recover from various injuries, drinking binges and sleepless nights. Who is surprised that his sleeping schedule is a bit haywire? _Suicidal thoughts._ It was just what he deserved.

 

If anyone was at fault for how Hanzo was, it was no one else to blame but Hanzo himself. Who had labored alone for ten years? Who betrayed his family? Who betrayed his brother? Who was blinded by power? Who lost? Who lived, still?

 

He sighed into the pillow and pulled out his communicator. Already it was blinking with a series of messages from the team, most of them singular get well wishes, the outliers being Genji and Hana’s paragraphs of talking and even Mccree’s three line attempt at conversation. Hanzo doesn’t open it aside from deleting the notifications from his notification bars, and painfully aware of the adolescent nature of his action, Hanzo opens Google and google's _clinical depression._ Hanzo scrolls past many disreputable medical sites. Nothing of interest shows up; clicking on news only serves to present news about the advancement of antidepressants and suicides. So Hanzo clicks on images.

 

He is immediately disgusted. Most of the pictures are black and white poorly put together image graphics made by teenagers lamenting their awful conditions with mascara streaked models and torn paper. It is very _chuunibiyou_. Hanzo rolls his eyes and continues flipping past pictures.

 

That is definitely not him.

 

But his fingers hesitate over a brain scan that compares the heat and activity in brains. While Hanzo may be considered _old fashioned_ in several ways, but physical evidence is something he cannot deny. He clicks the link and is taken to a privately hosted website that was the pet project of a medical graduate student.

 

He reads.

 

And reads.

 

And reads.

 

Soon it becomes clear that it not just in his head. It is a weakness sitting latent in his chest, in his heart like a black growing cancer--- and just like that, Hanzo recalls the past years with a sort of detached rage. What should have been colorful was instead pitch black, colored only by bouts of emotional ups and downs and the people he’s killed along the way. Maybe he was one of the people he killed along the way.

 

Hanzo is many things, he will admit; a coward, a killer, a two-faced bastard, cold, thoughtless, calculating, a failure, a poor older brother, a disappointment to the family name, and perhaps the villain of someone’s story.

 

But he has _never_ been weak. He will never _allow_ himself to be weak.

 

With a few rapid taps, Hanzo’s message interface to Hana sits bright in front of him. The cursor blinks smugly at him, as if to taunt him with his speechlessness. The past seven months have felt like a hell blur whipping past him faster than he could process it; Hana and Genji just somehow latched on for the ride. He thinks of her smile and her gentle ribbing, the way she calls crowds from a computer, and Genji’s teasing and the way he _insists_ he eats at dinner sometimes, and the awful electric sparks rising off a torn soldier.

 

_Hana: so ya like im rlly worried abt u like i knew it was bad but i had no idea this was coming n i feel so bad for ignoring u_

_Hana: i mean not ignoring u but not like being more u know_

_Hana: not that it matters bc whats done is done and its obvs not about me but tracer told me about the thing she offered you and i really think you should take it_

_Hana: not even just from I Am Your Friend perspective, but as in tactics wise, kings rows is like super fucky rn and we do need eyes and ears on it on all times n we are so far away from it that its just not sensible to only go when theres an emergency_

_Hana: ur literally one of the best mid range anythings i have seen if there’s anyone for the job its u_

_Hana: knowing ur ass i knew that youd get all prickly when they suggested u getting help bc you’d b all like ‘but my honor and also i do not need help because i am a super tough damurai’ but like_

_Hana: *samurai_

_Hana: hanzo_

_Hana: please_

_Hana: getting help doesn’t mean you arent strong or anything like that or WHATEVER the hell is running thru ur head rn_

_Hana: (Angela has locked the medbay and we can’t get in, and believe me, we tried)._

_Hana: but like…_

_Hana: we need you out there._

_Hana: and i need u 2._

_Hana: and if u just talking 2 someone abt ur feelings and taking an antidepressant to fix ur fucky neurons is what u need_

_Hana: so that ur not in there and im out there_

_Hana: imgladhesinthereandimoutthere.jpg_

_Hana: sorry couldnt resist ANYWAY_

_Hana: just get some help please오빠_

 

Hanzo’s fingers hover over his keyboard, unsure. He has never quite been this honest before; but before the dragon can wallow and swallow his pride, he types the message and sends it.

 

_Hanzo: I want to be happy._

  
  


It still hurts to move.

 

Dr. Ziegler had cleared him for travel, but there was still an ache that sat deep in his ribs whenever he twisted or turned. Zeigler said it was because healing was slower the second time, and the scar tissue would be thicker than even before. But the stitches don’t tear, his wound doesn’t bleed, and with enough painkillers and perseverance he will be right as rain in a few short weeks.

 

The past month had been a blur of recovery and preparation. He had accepted Oxton’s offer, though begrudgingly. He was not sure about the course recommended by Dr. Ziegler, he did not understand the necessity for it, and although he sometimes weakly insisted that he was fine and had _always_ been like that.

 

 _That is the true problem_ , they insisted.

 

When he was not in the medical bay being heavily monitored, he was packing or planning or rehashing mission details with Winston and Oxton. When he could spare the time, Hana would take him out shopping in demand that he needed more personal belongings so he could live ‘the cushy life’ in London. And thus he got a new wardrobe and his hair cut, and more D.VA merchandise than a full grown man can own in the right conscience.

 

The sun rises slowly over the heady traffic of Gibraltar International Airport without any sort of recognition of the archer standing silently in their terminals. His traditional clothes are packed tight in the sleek black suitcase on his side, and so is the cheap tank tops and singular pair of jeans he used to own. Now there is more name brand pair of jeans in his bag than he count, and button downs and t shirts and jackets and a shameful amount of hot pink _I Play To Win!_ Shirts. Rather than being overwhelmed, the feeling of having too much to pick up and run grounded him to the situation. He felt real again, instead of incorporeal fleeing ghost who could pick up and disappear one way or another any given moment. With Hana and Genji’s constant and understanding presence, he even managed to keep his head relatively trimmed and his face relatively cared for. Stormbow was repaired free of charge by Torbjorn as a “get better soon” and “going away” present, and she was safely registered with the airport, unstringed and put away in a unassuming black cloth sack.

 

The alcohol was another situation altogether. Hanzo still itched for it sometimes, and snuck out to steal some from the cabinet when the need got bad, but it was the pride and shame that stopped it. If not that, Genji strategically entering the kitchen with the claim of “needing some water”. As if he “needed water” every single hour of the night that Hanzo needed alcohol.

 

Hanzo still was not sure about the whole function; why was London the answer when it was so far from where his duty lay?

 

But he was willing to _try._ And that was enough.

 

The employee yells that there is ten minutes until boarding, and Hanzo takes that as his cue to take a peek at his ticket. He is seated in the A group thankfully, so there would be less chance of having to sit between two strangers. When he was prince, he sat in a private jet. When he was pauper, he only took a plane to cross oceans and no other reason, and that was with a fake I.D. Now he sits with the rest of the plane. It is strange.

 

Hana stands by his side, strategically disguised with a pair of pink reflective sunglasses and her hair pulled into double buns that render her unrecognizable to anyone not looking closely. She frowns uncomfortably at the announcement and shifts. “Do you really have to go?” She whines, despite being one of the number one supports of Hanzo going.

 

“Yeah, do you really gotta?” Genji insists from behind Hanzo. He’s dressed impeccably to the nines in tight fitting, flattering high-rise jeans and a black tank top that says _too thug to live, too kawaii to die_ with an image of a cutesy Yakuza girl on it. It is ironic because no Yakuza girl in her right mind would have worn that if she wished to be truly successful in crime, and no yakuza girl actually looks like that.

 

Genji slurps on his Starbucks and shuffles around just so his light up sneakers flash. Genji was the most supportive about the relocation than anyone.

 

“I will be glad to turn around and join Gibraltar’s ranks again,” Hanzo drawls.

 

“No!” Genji and Hana retort. Genji leans over and tugs on Hanzo’s shirt. “All of our effort at dressing you would be wasted,” He adds somberly. Hana hums her agreement.

 

Hanzo looks down. He does not think he dressed in any particular way. His jeans are new and so are his black boots, and the black shirt with it is also new. The most striking thing is the dark blue jacket slung over his shoulders. “I can dress myself,” Hanzo insists.

 

Genji takes another loud slurp of his coffee. “Can you though.”

 

“Can you though.” Hana agrees.

 

The employee calls for A group to board, and Hanzo is glad to be rid of the pests that follow him. “I am leaving,” he calls brusquely and hikes up his suitcase and goes to stand in line. Hana grabs his sleeve to stop him before he can merge though, and he’s pulled into a bone crushing hug before he can stop it.

 

Hanzo huffs into her hair and obediently wraps his arms around her. “I will miss you,” Hana mumbles into his chest.

 

“I as well,” Hanzo replies. He disentangles himself from Hana just to be tugged into a truly bone creaking hug from Genji.

 

“You take care of yourself,” Genji mumbles in his ear. “We will visit. I will write, and email, and call, and--and, I will show up with _no_ warning so you better have the good junk food at all times. Keep me updated about that therapist we found, if you like her, okay? Make sure to eat, and be careful on the streets,” Hanzo has to squeeze Genji’s ribcage threateningly tight in order to get him to stop.

 

“Now,” Hanzo says lightly, “Who is the older brother here?”

 

Genji rolls his eyes. “Text me,” he insists.

 

“I will.”

 

The hostess waits impatiently for Hanzo’s ticket behind him, so Hanzo hands it to her, shoulders his suitcase and bow case, and disappears into the tunnel to the plane. He does not know if going to London will truly help him any. But for them?

 

For them, he is willing to try being happy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;laksdjf;lsdjkfl;a THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR READING
> 
> this was such an emotionally journey from start to end and i'm so glad to have made the acquantince of so many patient, supportive and understanding readers along the way. so many people said that they SAW themselves in hanzos struggle and that's all i really wanted to write this about :') just wanted to write hanzo in a way that... *sigh* emotions. 
> 
> i never planned to kill hanzo.
> 
> mentally ill people deserve happy endings.


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